Windy weather

As Central Texas approaches summer (any day now, I expect), we are getting all of the spring things taken care of as quickly as possible.  Wildflowers are in bloom.  Trees are budding.  Birds are building nests.  A little rain (although the predictions suggest a fairly dry summer).  A lot of sunshine (and the predictions suggest a warmer-than-average summer).  Glorious blue skies, which, of course, we can see in any season, but who wants to go outside in the summer?

Last night we had some wind.  Not much.  Maybe up to 12 mph?  We were supposed to have some rain, but, again, not much.  I could see some wet pavement this morning, but it was mostly drying off.

The wind blew over my new sun shelter.  I never expected the thing to last the summer, but we only just put it up a couple of days ago, and I was looking forward to having the mosquito free work space to continue sorting through the rubble of my life.  (OK, "rubble" is dramatic, but I'm in a flippant mood about said "rubble," so I'll let it stand.)  I was rather disappointed that the shelter didn't even last a week.  I guess I'll have to figure out something about tie downs and such if I'm ever going to get it back up.

In other news, I had a massive amount of recycling this week (rubble!).  Filled two large bins and borrowed another.  Getting that third bin meant hiking over to a neighbor's house, dragging the already-half-filled bin back to mine, filling it, and then dragging the fully loaded bin back to the neighbor's house.  Up an incline.  Well, it took a while, and, although the morning was pleasantly cool, I got rather warm.  I paused on the way back to my home to rest a moment and felt a lovely cooling breeze ruffle my hair.

Isn't wind a wonder?  We can harness it for power, transportation, recreation. We can manufacture it for cooling as well as the more practical uses.  We fight against its destructive powers, when too much wind can wipe out cities and kill.

The science of wind can be a little dry to some of us, but the wonder is available to all of us.  We might take a moment now and then to notice the wind and its effects on our lives--for good or ill--perhaps to acknowledge that so many things that we encounter in our lives may also affect us for good or ill, being neither good nor bad but just what they are.    Or perhaps we can take that moment to enjoy the simple pleasure of a cooling breeze.   Would that be spiritual?