Summer into Autumn

It’s been an interesting week. Today is the last Sunday of Summer, meteorologically apeaking. Meteorologists begin Falling into Autumn on September 1. With luck, today’s Heat Advisory and tomorrow’s Excessive Heat Warning will end Summer’s heat and humidity attacks.

On Wednesday, we enjoyed a visit to our backyard by four sandhill cranes, two adults and two grown colts it looked like. They pecked their way around the yard and the wet spot behind the house. I can only hope they nailed a few moles and/or voles. As the cranes moved toward the North, a small flock of wild turkey hens entered from the South. Everyone pretty much ignored each other and kept their distance. Would that we humans were better at such behavior.

[ONCE AGAIN BLOGGER IS MALFUNCTIONING FOR ADDING AN IMAGE!!!]

Echinocystis lobata (Wild Cucumber)

Photo by J. Harrington

Midweek, I discovered, and removed, a red squirrel’s nest from the deck rafters. I spotted it while checking to see if the bat I had chased out of the house Wednesday morning early had tried to settle under the deck. No signs of the bat, and I set a live trap for the squirrel. A couple of days later, s/he was caught and transported several miles away and released into a new home territory, we hope.

Why are oak leaves and snowflakes alike in Minnesota? There’s only on month of the year in which Minnesota hasn’t recorded a snowfall and, I suspect, there’s but one, maybe two, months when oak trees aren’t shedding their leaves. They’ve started coming down this week, again. Tamaracks are turning golden, wild cucumber is blossoming. More trees are showing more colors.

Our son has had successful surgery on his broken arm. Daughter Person took possession of a new, to her, horse on Thursday. That pleases the daylights out of her. There seems to be something in the air, again, that has the dogs licking their paws, and me blowing my nose. Summer has just about worn out its welcome as our state fair begins.

I’m guessing you’ve heard by now that our Governor, Tim Walz, is the Democratic candidate for Vice President, with Kamala Harris nominated for President. We have an opportunity to do much worse. I truly hope we don’t take it, not so much for my sake as for the lives of our children and grandchildren unto the seventh generation. VOTE BLUE! please.

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

As Summer fades, Autumn glows emerge

Twice this past week I’ve seen a flock of four or five sandhill cranes standing on a road. A few days ago they were on our paved road, with wetlands on either side. Yesterday, Saturday, they were standing just before a curve on a gravel road I was traveling to pick up our weekly community supported agriculture [CDA] share. I’ve never before seen live cranes on a road. No idea what’s going on.

Yesterday’s CSA share included:

Tomatoes Red Leaf or Simpson lettuce Broccoli  Cantaloupe Sweet Corn  Green Pepper

This week past also brought several deer sightings. Mid-week, one of this year’s fawns stood in the middle of a neighbor’s driveway and stared at the dogs and me as we walked past. It was still there on our return a few minutes later, but had had enough of visiting and took off into the bushes. On yesterday’s CSA trip, does and fawns were scattered in several fields and at the curve in the gravel road just past where the cranes had been.

August: full moon

Photo by J. Harrington

Our early morning dog walking this morning brought a view of one of the most gorgeous orange “full” moons I’ve seen in a long time. Technically the full moon arrives tomorrow and I’m looking forward to a repeat performance.

More and more trees are showing color changes in their leaves. Two maple trees in widely different locations have turned all red, almost crimson. On the other hand, temperatures have crept back to seasonable and the humidity is uncomfortable. There was a recent report [TPT Almanac, 8/16/24] that so far, this has been the second wettest year on record at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. It appears to be a tossup whether we’ll top the all time annual record. Stay tuned.

Three Songs at the End of Summer

Jane Kenyon
1947 – 1995

A second crop of hay lies cut   
and turned. Five gleaming crows   
search and peck between the rows.
They make a low, companionable squawk,   
and like midwives and undertakers   
possess a weird authority.

Crickets leap from the stubble,   
parting before me like the Red Sea.   
The garden sprawls and spoils.

Across the lake the campers have learned   
to water-ski. They have, or they haven’t.   
Sounds of the instructor’s megaphone   
suffuse the hazy air. “Relax! Relax!”

Cloud shadows rush over drying hay,   
fences, dusty lane, and railroad ravine.   
The first yellowing fronds of goldenrod   
brighten the margins of the woods.

Schoolbooks, carpools, pleated skirts;   
water, silver-still, and a vee of geese.

*

The cicada’s dry monotony breaks   
over me. The days are bright   
and free, bright and free.

Then why did I cry today   
for an hour, with my whole   
body, the way babies cry?

*

A white, indifferent morning sky,   
and a crow, hectoring from its nest   
high in the hemlock, a nest as big   
as a laundry basket....
                     In my childhood   
I stood under a dripping oak,
while autumnal fog eddied around my feet,   
waiting for the school bus
with a dread that took my breath away.

The damp dirt road gave off   
this same complex organic scent.

I had the new books—words, numbers,   
and operations with numbers I did not   
comprehend—and crayons, unspoiled   
by use, in a blue canvas satchel
with red leather straps.

Spruce, inadequate, and alien   
I stood at the side of the road.   
It was the only life I had.

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