Almost the entire south wall of our house is glass. It is made up of twenty-one 4foot wide glass panels, three doors with two windows apiece and the supports that keep it all in place. As I sit here a hummingbird swings by the feeder for a quick sip then peers intently through the window. I wonder if it is the same one who came in a couple of weeks ago. We were running the mixer so the garage door that makes up the west end of the house was open leaving easy access to the house for an intrepid bird. He must have liked it a lot because after I captured him and set him outside the door he went around to the west end and came in again.
The house is working remarkably well. Since June 1 the interior temperature has stayed between 63 and 73 degrees while outdoors it has gone from 43 to 98 degrees. We are completely off-grid; cell phones, satellite internet, and solar panels power the house. In town, folks are running swamp coolers all day to stay cool while here the natural temperature of the earth is keeping us cool.
Since I called this posting watching from the window I should mention the horrible death and destruction I see as the Epps beetle ravages the piñon. A rush of red is cascading across the mesa on the far side of the canyon as the piñons die, interspersing the melange of greens with patches of rust. But still, the beauty of the canyon triumphs and one can watch endlessly as the sun hits the different rock faces on the far side of the canyon revealing a different vision at every angle. All told, even with the Epps beetle, the beauty endures.
Reading now: Shifting Love by Constance O'Day Flannery, Tor's first foray into romance publishing.
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