Summer’s last hurrah?

Yesterday evening a yearling whitetail doe visited the pear tree. Her ears are so large I almost wondered if she is actually a mule dear. Maybe she’ll grow into them, the way a puppy grows into into their paws.

hen wild turkey on deck railing

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning we were visited by “the girls.” There appears to be a flock of half a dozen wild turkey hens that wanders through the field behind the house every week or two. As one or two of the braver ones sometimes do, at least one hen was cleaning up the droppings from the deck-hung bird seed feeder. Although today was not the day that a hen perched on the deck railing, it reminded me of that unusual August visit a few years ago.

Today and tomorrow are going to be hot and humid enough that we’ll limit outside chores to the early morning hours, after our third cup of coffee. Today we spread mole repellant over the area beneath the bird feeder where the Better Half wants to plant hydrangeas and peonies. There’s lots of holes in the ground from moles, voles, and/or chipmunks so the effort to limit underground nibblers comes under the heading of “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” I’ll be pleasantly surprised if it actually works. If it doesn’t, I may have to look for a rent-a-snake operation similar to the rent a herd of goats to eat the buckthorn.

I don’t know about you, but I hope after tomorrow autumnal weather settles in until the first snowflakes fall on Christmas Eve.

Autumn

Alice Cary - 1820-1871

Shorter and shorter now the twilight clips
   The days, as though the sunset gates they crowd,
And Summer from her golden collar slips
   And strays through stubble-fields, and moans aloud,

Save when by fits the warmer air deceives,
   And, stealing hopeful to some sheltered bower,
She lies on pillows of the yellow leaves,
   And tries the old tunes over for an hour.

The wind, whose tender whisper in the May
   Set all the young blooms listening through th’ grove,
Sits rustling in the faded boughs to-day
   And makes his cold and unsuccessful love.

The rose has taken off her tire of red—
   The mullein-stalk its yellow stars have lost,
And the proud meadow-pink hangs down her head
   Against earth’s chilly bosom, witched with frost.

The robin, that was busy all the June,
   Before the sun had kissed the topmost bough,
Catching our hearts up in his golden tune,
   Has given place to the brown cricket now.

The very cock crows lonesomely at morn—
   Each flag and fern the shrinking stream divides—
Uneasy cattle low, and lambs forlorn
   Creep to their strawy sheds with nettled sides.

Shut up the door: who loves me must not look
   Upon the withered world, but haste to bring
His lighted candle, and his story-book,
   And live with me the poetry of Spring.

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