Auguries of Autumn #phenology

Yesterday afternoon the bird bath got cleaned and refilled. Those activities disturbed a little gray tree frog that we just barely missed stepping on as it hopped across the deck. Summer last year revealed a pair of them nestled under the bird bath, between the bowl and the railing on which the bowl is mounted. A larger relative jumped out of the way of the front wheels of the tractor into the very thick grass around the back yard wet spot, as we were pulling buckthorn yesterday. That's when we also saw a dragonfly (season's last?) hovering over the back yard.

gray tree frogs, almost as cute as Kermit

Photo by J. Harrington

Hornets(?) have begun their autumnal appearance, seeking places to Winter over. Several are crawling up the inside of the screens on the porch while others mass in the narrow joist space under the deck corner. Yet another spider was caught and released from inside the house. Some oak leaves are showing Autumn colors. For at least the past several days, there's been no sign of activity at either the swift house or the bluebird house but hummingbirds continue to arrive at the feeder.

We finally hitched up our big boy pants, got brave, and, inspired my Michael Pollan's Cooked, started our very own sourdough starter yesterday. As of a few minutes ago there's still no signs of life (bubbles forming in the mixture), but we're not ready to give up hope just yet. Wish us luck and stay tuned for future developments (we hope). Meanwhile, if you're so inclined, ponder whether starting a mixture of flour and water that ends up feeding, and being consumed by, yeast spores is comparable to creating life or does it simply make life that already exists all about us more visible?

Then, please join us in sadly noting yesterday's passing of John Ashbury, "an enigmatic genius of modern poetry..."

Wild Yeasts

Annie Finch

for Marta

Rumbling a way up my dough’s heavy throat to its head, 
seeping the trailed, airborne daughters down into the core, 
bubbles go rioting through my long-kneaded new bread; 
softly, now, breath of the wildest yeast starts to roar. 
My hands work the peaked foam, push insides out into the light, 
edge shining new sinews back under the generous arch 
that time’s final sigh will conclude. (Dry time will stretch tight 
whistling stops of quick heat through my long-darkened starch.) 

How could I send quiet through this resonant, strange, vaulting roof 
murmuring, sounding with spores and the long-simple air, 
and the bright free road moving? I sing as I terrace a loaf 
out of my hands it has filled like a long-answered prayer. 
Now the worshipping savage cathedral our mouths make will lace 
death and its food, in the moment that refracts this place.

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