Four Seasons

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When we lived in Miami, it wasn't uncommon for people from back home to wonder if we didn't miss the four distinct seasons. The time I missed it most was autumn, but there was still a distinction, and my biggest gripe with southern Florida was always the unmitigated heat. The Oregon coast was a much more temperate climate, and I had the impression of seasonal change more there.
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It is only this spring, and now summer, that I have realized just how much the seasons have been absent in the last five years. The landscape seems to have changed completely since the trees leafed. I have had my tree guide out indentifying the types of deciduous trees that make up the fantastic avian habitat outside my balcony. And of course, I've had the bird guide out, identifying its inhabitants.
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Today, I sit on the balcony with my kitty friend. She divides her time between lolling in the sun and fantasizing about hunting my feeder birds. I sit in the shade reading or sipping coffee or just
drinking in the fluffy cumulus, the bright blue sky reflected in the river, the oak and locust and maple and ash, the grosbeak and finch and siskin and warbler, and the gentle breeze.
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Rose