Late August is a treat. The weather is out of this world. The crowds thin out. The sky is clear and dry. The light is great at all times of day but not more so than in the late afternoon, early evening, the so called Golden Hours.

There are a thousand weddings, and family portraits (Christmas card style) and individual senior portraits for high school yearbooks. There are photographers who are loud and others who have a more sedate style. We watch and listen to them all.

One change to the mornings has been two different coffee trucks. They arrive early, run generators, draw big crowds. This has taken the quiet out of the weekend mornings especially. It has also brought in a lot more trash. We won’t be sad to see their season come to a close.

The rabbits have taken to giving themselves a dirt bath in the yard. There are three or four different spots where you can see that they have lain down and rolled themselves into a football shaped divot in the yard. That is a new twist here as well.

As the summer winds down we begin once again to wash the windows. There are days it seems futile to do it but if you are going to see that amazing light you have to clean the windows once in a while.

There was a small crowd this past Thursday night in anticipation of the eclipse of the moon. The view from here was blocked by clouds so it was a bit of a bust. Earlier in the night you could get his shot.

That same day began with this sunrise shot.

Without the ocean this could be the final shot in the last Star Wars movie.

At the top of the blog is a new link to the weather station set up on the cottage. The old one had reported the weather in the moment but was not recording the data over time. I reached out to the vendor and they agreed it should be and sent me a replacement. That was installed on Friday and is live now. We can track the wind and rain again here. The story is the wind. The hurricane season is upon us.

The old sensor joins the birdhouses mounted on the message board near the flagpole. The birds will have another roost there.

Part Twelve of the Etrusco story is in place. It features an excerpt from a longer program that ran on WATD. Check it out.

One more photo to show how clear the air is in August. This is this morning as a Coast Guard vessel nears Minot Light. This is five or six miles away and if I cropped it you would be able to read the numbers on the ship.