All right, complaining is not going to change the weather, so I’m going to quit right now. No more complaining, no more whining and moaning.

Just one more gripe then it’s over.

Is the sun ever going to shine on St. Louis again?

There. I’m done. I did see a small patch of blue sky today, in the north (since the prevailing winds blow west to east, though, I didn’t get my hopes up). At one point I saw a burst of sunlight brighten the yellow of a Gingko tree, but before I could get my camera up, it was gone.

On the avian front, I managed to scare a Great Blue Heron out of the cypress trees in the middle of the fish ponds (I wasn’t trying to, honest), a Northern Flicker let me get quite close and... the crows are back. I’ve not been too fond of crows ever since I read about their perfidy in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but when the West Nile virus rolled through and decimated their ranks, I began to miss them. Over the course of this year they’ve been slowly reestablishing themselves in the area, and even though I have a nagging suspicion they are reporting my movements to the Dark Lord, I’m still glad they’re back.

There were bonfires and hayrides tonight at the intersection of Wells and Jefferson (I found out about it when I asked the men stocking the wood piles what they were doing). I took the whole family, but found out it’s a group activity that requires a reservation and a $100 fee per wagon. So we watched, instead. You can watch, also.