Summertime...

...and the livin' is easy...

Summer has officially arrived, and is making her presence known in several ways.

I am sitting in the screened porch typing this blog on my laptop. It is nearly 10 PM and pitch dark. But it's still quite warm and humid out here. We have officially pulled out of the springtime pattern of cool nights and open windows. When we reach the point that it is already too hot by 8 AM to eat breakfast in the screened porch, then I will know summer has reached her peak.

Tomorrow is the last day of school for island students. I attended the "end of school picnic" with the first graders today, and read them the last story of the year. I read The Great Kapok Tree, one of my favorites, about the rain forest. They mostly listened, although they were quite excited about getting to eat outside on the dock near Mary Ellen's boat and the prospect of beating the stuffing (literally) out of the pinata which hung waiting nearby.

The village is bustling with visitors, and now there are more families with children, as the school year in other areas has already ended. Today, as the first graders were lining up to walk back to school from the dock, a dad and his two boys were preparing to take a ride in the harbor and waters around the island on jet skis. (I suspect some of the kids wished they could have gone with them, instead of back to the classroom!)

The water is warm enough now that my daily routine involves putting my feet in it, instead of just touching, which is sometimes done timidly and quite quickly, with just a finger, during the winter!

And beach season must be officially beginning, because tomorrow Dr. Beach will announce his list of Top 10 US Beaches for 2007. Be sure to watch the Today show for live feed from Ocracoke tomorrow morning. If you miss that, you can get the update on Dr. Beach's picks on his website.

Have a great summer!