Summer's golden days #phenology

When the dog and I took our early morning walk, the temperature was delightfully near 60℉. Sunlight had just begun to clear the horizon, birds were singing and biting bugs were scarce. The day held promise for turning into one of those golden days of summer about which I often fantasize.

hoary alyssum

Photo by J. Harrington

Mid-afternoon we're still enjoying a respite from the string of 90+ days. Roadside fields are full of yellow goatsbeard blooms gone to seed, looking like giant dandelions. More gold is captured in the hoary puccoon and birdsfoot trefoil blossoms visible up and down the ditches, nodding in today's breeze. Fields and road ditches are streaked with accents of purple vetch and speckled with white hoary alyssum blossoms.

female common whitetail dragonfly?

Photo by J. Harrington

Something like half-a-dozen or more species of dragonflies flittered from plant to plant or swooped to check out us, or the bugs we were attracting. It was truly a joy to be out walking and watching the world around us. Would it have been as pleasant had we not just gone through seven days of unseasonably hot temperatures and accompanying humidity, but no rain? May we enjoy many more summer days like today, interspersed with some showers and an occasional thunderstorm.

Summer of the Ladybirds

By Vivian Smith

Can we learn wisdom watching insects now,

or just the art of quiet observation?

Creatures from the world of leaf and flower

marking weather’s variation.

 

The huge dry summer of the ladybirds

(we thought we’d never feel such heat again)

started with white cabbage butterflies

sipping at thin trickles in the drain.

 

Then one by one the ladybirds appeared

obeying some far purpose or design.

We marvelled at their numbers in the garden,

grouped together, shuffling in a line.

 

Each day a few strays turned up at the table,

the children laughed to see them near the jam

exploring round the edges of a spoon.

One tried to drink the moisture on my arm.

 

How random and how frail seemed their lives,

and yet how they persisted, refugees,

saving energy by keeping still

and hiding in the grass and in the trees.

 

And then one day they vanished overnight.

Clouds gathered, storm exploded, weather cleared.

And all the wishes that we might have had

in such abundance simply disappeared.

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