Summer goldrums

My favorite time of year usually starts when the local New England asters come into bloom and lasts through leaf fall on the maples. (Our local oaks drop their leaves up to and including leaf out next spring, so there’s almost no end to their leaf fall season.) During this period, Canada geese start their goslings on training flights to develop flight muscles and chevron practice. The local sandhill cranes begin to assemble in larger and larger flocks in anticipation of their migration south. We’ve already seen some crane assemblies as the small grain fields get harvested and cranes begin gleaning and feeding where the harvest is completed.

Canada geese: training flights begin soon

Photo by J. Harrington

If our township hasn’t mown them into extirpation, the local roadside asters should start showing their lavender flowers in the next week or two (or three). Over the years, I’ve planted a half dozen or so New England asters around our property. So far, none have survived more than a year or twos of my benign neglect. Maybe we’ll try again this year. At least we can enjoy them during this autumn.

According to my cheat sheet from a local orchard, apples won’t be ready for picking until near month’s end. We’ve noticed that honeycrisps grown elsewhere are lacking in something compared to the Minnesota homegrown variety. This apple season offers me yet another chance to take notes on my preferences among apple varieties. For the past several years I’ve intended to but you know what they say the road to hell is paved with, right?

For the most part, today’s rain has been more gentle showers than downpours. There’s been enough rumbles of thunder to get SiSi’s attention, but not enough to make her really nervous. With luck, this afternoon’s, evening’s and tomorrow’s precipitation will be no more severe. The plants seem much happier than this time yesterday.

The Sandhills

By Linda Hogan

The language of cranes

we once were told

is the wind. The wind

is their method,

their current, the translated story

of life they write across the sky.

Millions of years

they have blown here

on ancestral longing,

their wings of wide arrival,

necks long, legs stretched out

above strands of earth

where they arrive

with the shine of water,

stories, interminable

language of exchanges

descended from the sky

and then they stand,

earth made only of crane

from bank to bank of the river

as far as you can see

the ancient story made new.

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