It's That Season Again
Where oh where did our summer go? Summer, we hardly knew ye, must ye so swiftly depart?
At night we hear the thrumming of wings, the unaccustomed sound of bird-call, cheeps and chirps as songbirds communicate their presence in the night sky to one another, lest any be lost from the flock. Already, already! It is to weep. We celebrated the triumphant entrance of spring vanquishing reluctant winter. We embraced the advent of summer, and thought it would go on and on and on. And one supposes in its own way it did. And then summer became tired of its struggle and decided to submit to the inevitable. Summer, we miss you already!
We hear crickets in the ravine now, along with the birds. Amazingly, willows are already losing their slender fingerling-leaves. The last of the fall flowers, the mauve and purple asters are flowering, while the white ones begin their descent into decay; their dried flower-heads will suffer winter winds in the months to come. The Hawthornes have lost half of their leaves, some branches already bare, the little red haws much in evidence. The bittersweet vine is still green; its berries are now a brilliant yellow, preparing for their winter-red hue, for the overwintering birds to find and feast upon.
The red plush candles of the Staghorn sumachs are much in evidence. Their leaves have not yet begun to flame into their wonderful fall plumage, before plummeting inexorably to ground. Mosquitoes have become fewer, less invasive, but blackflies have returned and although they're not yet - nor will they likely this year again - biting, they are a bitter nuisance, flickering in numbers around one's head, into one's eyes and unwarily-open mouth. We take windmill-evasive measures to hush them away.
Our little dog Button is wary of all the flying things. She has had too many uncomfortable encounters with such fliers in the past, occasionally resulting in pain and swellings. She hurries determinedly past those areas on the trail where wasps suddenly appear as though from nowhere, hungry to disrupt the pleasure of our leisurely pace.
It's the season once again for fungal growth, mushrooms erupting swiftly from the still-damp earth to reclaim their place in the cycle of life. They are many in types and colours and elicit surprised recognition from us. The tiny clusters of orange fungi, the large yellow flat-topped mushrooms, the shelf-fungus that grows against the trunks of diseased trees, the tiny sprawling bits of white on the very earth itself, under trees whose soil hosts the long-dead detritus of other, earlier incarnations.
Fall comes shortly. We place tiny biscuits and seeds in places where the scolding red squirrels and the raccoons will be certain to find them, assiduous hunters that they are, at this time of season.
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, September 03, 2006
<< Home