Approaching Summer's last hurrah? #phenology

We've been enjoying a nice, gentle, off and on series of autumnal showers today. The rain should dissolve the fertilizer we spread around those asters the Better Half just planted. Before the first shower this morning, we (the tractor and I) managed to get a few more buckthorns pulled. There are now several places where we can actually see all the way through the (soon to be gone) understory.

an advancing skirmish line of turkeys

Photo by J. Harrington

A handful of wild turkey hens and almost mature poults just went through the back yard, looking like a skirmish line. It would be great if turkeys actively fed on pocket gophers but at least they help control the tick population, although there's gazillions of little grasshoppers for them to feed on. Turkeys are always fun to watch but lots more fun to hunt in the Spring, when calling toms is the tactic. In Autumn, it's largely a question of just getting within range, more like deer hunting.

Friday's weather forecast continues to call for a high of 87℉, too hot to work much, followed by a drop back into the mid-sixties. We're still probably three weeks or so from our first frost. Then we'll be eligible for Indian Summer. (We're of the school that believes it's the first warm spell after the first hard frost.) If the indicator is that it must be on or near St. Martin's Day (November 11), perhaps we should start to substitute the term "Turkey Summer" in honor of Thanksgiving? Is September too early, even at midnight, for Indian Summer?

                     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.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.