Season changeup #phenology

Next weekend is Labor Day, the unofficial end of Summer. It's also September 1st, the official start of meteorological Autumn. The goldenrod near the wet spot behind the house is losing its flowers, although throughout our area there's still great swaths of golden yellow flowers to be seen. More and more maples are showing colorful leaves. The bergamot behind Coffee Talk in Taylors Falls has lost almost all of its petals. About eighty percent of what remains are only seed heads with a lonely petal or two on each stem.

'tis the season of goldenrod

Photo by J. Harrington

The Better Half took me to Coffee Talk today for a cup of cappuccino, a reward for the hour or so spent this morning pulling yet more buckthorn. The progress is becoming more noticeable each session. We're looking forward to being able to plant replacement native shrubs this Autumn or next Spring (or, some of each). Yesterdays and last nights rain softened the soil to make the pulling easier. We noticed a number of cedar seedlings intermixed with the buckthorn so we're removing those also. Plus, despite our efforts with poison ivy strength Roundup earlier this Summer, we have a number of vines looking frustratingly healthy. We think the next logical step is to pick up a pair or two of throw away work gloves and try pulling the ivy and disposing of it and the gloves in a black plastic trash bag.

and the season of changing color palettes

Photo by J. Harrington

Hummingbirds are still around and, as of yesterday, so are/were Baltimore orioles. The last of the grape jelly went into the oriole feeder this morning. About this time of year peak migration occurs so we'll buy another jar next Spring. The report from Annenberg Learner web site is that the southward migration of monarch butterflies has started.

The End of Summer

By Rachel Hadas

Sweet smell of phlox drifting across the lawn—

an early warning of the end of summer.

August is fading fast, and by September

the little purple flowers will all be gone.

Season, project, and vacation done.

One more year in everybody’s life.

Add a notch to the old hunting knife

Time keeps testing with a horny thumb.

Over the summer months hung an unspoken

aura of urgency. In late July

galactic pulsings filled the midnight sky

like silent screaming, so that, strangely woken,

we looked at one another in the dark,

then at the milky magical debris

arcing across, dwarfing our meek mortality.

There were two ways to live: get on with work,

redeem the time, ignore the imminence

of cataclysm; or else take it slow,

be as tranquil as the neighbors’ cow

we love to tickle through the barbed wire fence

(she paces through her days in massive innocence,

or, seeing green pastures, we imagine so).

In fact, not being cows, we have no choice.

Summer or winter, country, city, we

are prisoners from the start and automatically,

hemmed in, harangued by the one clamorous voice.

Not light but language shocks us out of sleep

ideas of doom transformed to meteors

we translate back to portents of the wars

looming above the nervous watch we keep.

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