A time of magical light

Between dawn and sunrise, what light there is often has a magical quality. This morning it caused to whitetail doe walking across the rise in our back yard to glow, almost ember-like. She was grazing on something near the ground in the tall grass, because her head kept disappearing below the tops of the grasses. Visions such as this morning's, and Thursday's sighting of a pair of sandhill cranes in a nearby cornfield, help a lot to refresh hope in times like these. Would that more of us suffered from severe cases of biophilia.

this Astilbe(?) looks like it should be named Angora something
[UPDATE: It's Queen-of-the-Prairie
Filipendula rubra]

Photo by J. Harrington

Leaf-dappled sunlight, accompanied by a gentle breeze, followed sunrise to the front yard. I still haven't learned how to adequately compensate for even mild motion with sufficiently fast shutter speeds. Sigh! The just out of focus quality is frustrating, but the flowers are pretty. I may need to start resorting to a tripod, or settle for a reduced depth of field. I don't recall ever seeing a flower quite as pretty as whatever the pink, lacy blooms [above] are. Genus and species weren't readily recalled by the Better Half when I queried her this morning. Most of us though recognize Queen Anne's lace.

Queen Anne's lace with early Sun dappling the right-hand flower

Photo by J. Harrington

A different mystery has been solved as this piece was being written. A week or two ago, I installed an ant guard moat above the deck oriole / hummingbird feeder. The feeder had been attracting a large number of big, black ants. Since then, even on days after heavy rains, I've noticed the water level had dropped until the container was about half full. I doubted there had been that much evaporation. Moments ago, I watched a nuthatch drinking, in its usual head down position, from the ant moat. I'm only too happy to get a two-fer out of the ant moat and am grateful that that mystery appears solved.

Enjoy Summer! Six months from now, deer will be in their Winter colors, flowers will be in hot houses,  and at least some of us will be complaining about cold, snow and wind-chills. Once in awhile I've found magical light during our cold seasons, but, like many of us, it seems to come out and play more often in the warmer months.

Miracles

Walt Whitman, 1819 - 1892

Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the
        water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night
        with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer
        forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so
        quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the
        same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—the
        ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?

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Please be kind to each other while you can.

Augury of Autumn #phenology

In case you missed the memo, we are now nearing the apex (peak), or nadir (pits), depending on how you view heat and humidity, of Summer's dog days. The 10-day weather forecast looks to encourage at least some "lethargy, inactivity, or indolence" among even such Summer-lovers as I. Just count it as a price we must pay to enjoy the benefits of road construction season. The superabundant deer flies, and whatever kind of small flies hatched and are now hanging around our oak leaves, seem to love it (heat, that is, they don't care about road construction unless it slows down potential victims).

northern red oak leaves and acorn

Photo by J. Harrington

Earlier this week, the northern red oak that partially shades our deck started dropping a few acorns, Autumn's auguries. The crop is not what I'd consider an abundance, but not entirely sparse either. As I recall, we had a very large mast crop in 2015, so a pattern that suggests "White oak and red oak appear to be on a 3-year-cycle" foretells that next year there should be an overabundance of acorns in our neck of the woods. In fact, last year's observations showed more nuts, or at least a higher nut density, than this year. We'll have to be sure to spray the edible bushes with deer repellent this Autumn, since it may be a hungry Winter for whitetails. The squirrels will just try harder and more frequently at the feeders.

strange fly hatch on oak leaves

Photo by J. Harrington

Much of what I've learned about our oaks, and the other trees and shrubs around here, has come from Welby R. Smith's Trees and Shrubs of Minnesota. I no doubt would learn more from reading it if I ever make myself sit down and learn more fundamentals of botany. Dealing with scientific writing makes me more and more sympathetic to those learning English as a second language. The vagaries of English probably equal or exceed the complexities of tree identification when faced with: "Hybrids between northern red oak and northern pin oak are relatively common in central Minnesota." I suspect the deer don't much care which kinds of corns they're knoshing on.

Trees Need Not Walk the Earth

David Rosenthal

Trees need not walk the earth  
For beauty or for bread;  
Beauty will come to them  
Where they stand.  
Here among the children of the sap
Is no pride of ancestry:  
A birch may wear no less the morning  
Than an oak.  
Here are no heirlooms  
Save those of loveliness, 
In which each tree  
Is kingly in its heritage of grace.  
Here is but beauty’s wisdom  
In which all trees are wise.  
Trees need not walk the earth 
For beauty or for bread;  
Beauty will come to them  
In the rainbow—  
The sunlight—  
And the lilac-haunted rain;
And bread will come to them  
As beauty came:  
In the rainbow—  
In the sunlight—  
In the rain.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.