Summer is over

I get sick every year this time. Not physically. mentally.

The thing is - it just gets dark too early.

In the tropics I find it totally annoying that the sun comes up the same and goes down the same. Everyday, boring. No leafs turning, no change in seasons. No hope.

Even though I didn't grow up here, these days I hang my hat near a little town in Montana. I think I got addicted to the light.

Summers are long glorious affairs. The sun practically only goes down long enough to get you a bit of sleep and - well, you have to realize that the snow in late April -sure it is April- and that drift across the driveway is 7 feet tall... that doesn't count. Nope Snow in June the last two years. "Well- it isn't officially summer yet." Right- June 21 don't cha know.

The sun marches up the mountain chain setting each night bit further north until the summer solstice then we get about 4 hours of "real" darkness.

Being a birder since childhood, I am now a confirmed morning person. I tried to become an Owl during certain periods of my life but I failed. Those of you who are owls are free to leave if you wish.

So when the summer is going strong so am I. I'll sleep when I am dead.

Birds are the same way. Many species start before light, a high pitched insect trill? Nope Henslow's Sparrow - a noted songsters if you are a grasshopper. Crickets... hah. Well they are more arrogant.

Besides copious amounts of coffee my life requires a massive doses of the outdoors. Being a wildlife television cameraman, my life itself is a migration. Hundreds of miles hiking, Thousands of road miles, hundreds of thousands of air miles which I never turn in and worse, I rarely remember to even give them the stupid number when I make the reservation. Don't get me started on baggage policies.

So I cling to this little house. Stuck on a ridge in the fiercesome gales which begin late fall. Winds. After the glories of summer here- Winter is the correction.

There are really only two seasons in Montana. Summer and winter. Some years there is a fall. Perhaps you get a spring. But when that drift swims across the roads and the powerlines go down - you know the story--when there is that much White- it is not really summer yet. Well no you don't that is why you are reading this.

June 6, 2009 a massive storm blows through. Epic storm. My sister calls. "But it is summer!"

another City girl....

The sun is a bit south of where I like to see it rise. But I need a dramatic sun-rise time lapse so I am planning the shot, the lens, the light.

So from a little town in rural Montana- we'll call it OneStopLight, Montana. Happy Trails.