Coming into bloom #phenology

We now have about 25 minutes less daylight than we did back at Summer Solstice. Our daylight is now decreasing at 2 minutes or so a day. Personally, I've noticed it more in the mornings than evenings because, for a very brief period, there was light  in the sky when SiSi and I took our early morning walks back in June.

Spotted Horsemint (Monarda punctata)

Photo by J. Harrington

Earlier today I was fussing about how, in years past, our fields behind the house were full of spotted horsemint (Monarda punctata) and there's none to be seen this year. Silly me! When I checked the dates on my pictures of the spotted horsemint, they were all taken in very late July to late August. Minnesota Wildflowers web site says Monarda blooms from July - September, and a more detailed chart of what's blooming by week of the month shows it blooming each week of July. This prompted me to take a quick look through binoculars at our fields and I think I saw a few blooms beginning to show. We'll keep an eye open and see what, if anything, develops further. As Minnesota Wildflowers notes "Factors such as temperature and precipitation play a large role in how a plant fares year after year." This year we're ahead on temperature and behind on precipitation.

There's still no sign of swamp milkweed flowering around our wet spot, although there seem to be more common milkweeds flowering in ditches this year than I remember seeing in past years. That may, or may not, explain the increased number of butterflies flittering over and around township gravel roads these days. At a risk of jinxing us, I'll note that the deerfly population seems diminished these days, but then so does the dragonfly population.

Today

Mary Oliver

Today I’m flying low and I’m

not saying a word

I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.

The world goes on as it must,

the bees in the garden rumbling a little,

the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten.

And so forth.

But I’m taking the day off.

Quiet as a feather.

I hardly move though really I’m traveling

a terrific distance.

Stillness. One of the doors

into the temple.

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