Summer's harbingers

Today the air feels sultry. A classic case of "it's not the heat, it's the humidity." I've been in Sun City, Arizona, in the Summer and know what a "dry heat" feels like. What we have in East Central Minnesota today isn't it. There have been scattered, very light sprinkles of rain, not even what  I'd consider showers, but no real thunderstorms or rainfall overnight or today so far.

ladybug on hoary alyssum

Photo by J. Harrington

Roadside fields, those not planted to corn, soybeans or sod, are showing nice colors of white (common boneset, I believe, or, maybe, hoary alyssum) and lavender (crown vetch, probably). The days are already getting shorter (about one minute less than solstice). Hoards of mosquitos and deer flies continue to harass dog walkers and their charges. Some local dog, more likely the black border collie cross than the yellow lab cross, has been sneaking both kinds of biting insects into the house. (Insects are more noticeable by far on blond dog hair, so they can be, and usually are, removed before the dog is allowed into the house. Noticing deer flies on black border collie fur is a fool's errand.)

One of the local avian critters has built a nest (of twigs) in the restored bluebird house. One day soon we'll take a peek and see if anyone is actually home. Any cleanout can wait until after Autumn migration. Unlike the current regime in Washington, D.C., I don't believe in breaking up migrant families.

daytime firefly(?)

Photo by J. Harrington

The Better Half informed me this morning that there were observable fireflies in the fields behind the house last night. With the outside chores I've been getting caught up on the past few days, I was too tuckered out to see them. Maybe sometime over this weekend I'll have the energy to stay alert and bushy-tailed (or is that bushy-taled?) enough to enjoy a show of fireworks without the bangs.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

—Mary Oliver

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