I've always found August to be an unsettled month. When I was young I used to think that the month of August represented the real in-depth month of summer weather; sunny and warm and dependably useful for planning vacations. Then I realized that, in my growing experience, August was the least weather-dependable month of the summer season. Whenever we'd embark with our children on our annual summer vacation we'd experience miserable weather; cool and rainy.

That's when we began planning our summer holiday getaways for June. And although we still could never rely on perfect weather conditions for recreational activities in the great out-of-doors, for the most part rain events were kept to a minimum.

This August has been no different than most, although year-over-year we tend to conveniently forget our dissatisfaction with the year before. We've had just about everything thrown at us but hurricanes. For people who love hot and humid weather we had a prolonged spell of just that. For people who appreciate constant rain events throughout the course of a day, day after day, with moderate temperatures, we had that too.

Nature seldom seems to compromise, giving us perfect weather for any period of time that we could select with confidence to spend our vacation in. But then, there is nothing in this world that is perfect, since it's a moving target; different things to different people. And nature is notoriously fickle, full of surprises.

Truth be told, I'm not personally all that dependent on the weather to enjoy outdoor opportunities; I like the sun, I like warmth, though I would willingly do away with excessive humidity if I could. I also like summer rain, since I'm an avid gardener and it's one of the pillars, alongside sun and warmth of a sturdily growing garden.

This time of year also presents little surprises when we're out in the ravine for our daily hikes. Fungi begin to appear, as they do also in the spring after a succession of rain events, popping up overnight, sprung to life by dead wood buried under the forest floor, and the coaxing of the rain.