Summer's end marks Autumn's beginning -- the Circle Game #phenology

We hope you're enjoying this last day of meteorological Summer. We're starting to wonder if we should spend Labor Day weekend building an ark. The weather forecast for the next week or so includes rain every day except tomorrow. Getting the brush pile torched isn't looking very promising, but we live in hope. The cottontail runny babbit whose home is under the pile would be grateful for the rains if s/he knew what a day or two of dry weather would bring. Rather than leave a rabbit homeless at the start of cooler weather, we intend to consolidate several smaller piles that are currently perched elsewhere on the property. We can't add all of them to the current pile without taking a chance on having a fire too large  to comply with DNR's regulations.

food fit for a deer

Photo by J. Harrington

We keep seeing pairs and family-sized small flocks of sandhill cranes in some local fields. If there are any larger flocks assembling nearby, we haven't yet noticed them. The oak trees near the front corner of the drive have been dumping lots of brown acorns onto the ground. Seems early for that. None one seems interested in feeding on them yet. at least we haven't noticed tracks in the mud near the acorns. Then, again, a yearling whitetail doe did stop under the pear tree a bit ago. Checking for fallen fruit we suspect.

early September acorns

Photo by J. Harrington

September's full  moon will be almost a month from now, on the 24th. The Ojibwe call it manoominike-giizis, rice moon. In his wonderful A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold calls to our attention what is mostly no longer there in September: the early morning chorus of birdsong. Come September the southerly migration begins for many songbirds. The feeders around the house have been getting emptied much more quickly than when the fledglings were being fed insects rather than finding their way to sunflower seeds and sugar water nectar, and the last bit of grape jelly for the soon to depart Baltimore orioles.

September Midnight

By Sara Teasdale

Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer, 

Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,  

Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,  

Ceaseless, insistent.   

The grasshopper’s horn, and far-off, high in the maples,  

The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence  

Under a moon waning and worn, broken,  

Tired with summer.    

Let me remember you, voices of little insects, 

Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,  

Let me remember, soon will the winter be on us, 

Snow-hushed and heavy.   

Over my soul murmur your mute benediction, 

While I gaze, O fields that rest after harvest, 

As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,  

Lest they forget them.

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