Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now

If the sun shows up or the moon and stars appear, stop, drop everything and head outside. It could be weeks before you’ll see them again.

Today, the forecast promised clouds and 95% chance of rain. But the clouds drifted apart in the late morning so we headed down to the river trail. We had a good hour of gorgeous light. A few blooms at the Eugene Rose Garden had not got the season memo.

In the racing water of the Willamette River, we saw lesser scaups, common mergansers, mallards, Canada geese, and a lone great blue heron standing on an enormous log in the main channel. We figured he was digesting a big old bull frog caught in one of the side channels earlier. Or maybe he was just digging on the sun as the river swept by.