Turning Thoughts

August is wet and sunny by turns this year, often rainy and with a high fog drifting over the village trees after sunrise. How soon the rain vanishes into the earth, and the world is dry again!

For all the summer monsoons, local hedgerows, fields and woodlands are acquiring dry and dusty aspects as the month grows elderly and autumn peers cautiously over the hill. Am I dreaming?  No, the leaves of the old maple tree across the street are already starting to turn.

The colors of the Two Hundred Acre Wood in August are a dry grayish green and bright gold; the song of this late summer month and its lambent moon is a ubiquitary pollen-dusted buzzing. I've been rambling and looking out for Monarch butterflies, caterpillars and cicadas, but endeavors in that area have been disappointing this summer. There's a profusion of jewel-eyed dragonflies, cabbage butterflies and satyrs in the western field, but scant handfuls of Monarchs and various fritillaries, a paucity of lovely bugs which are usually common around this time of year.  We continue to peer hopefully into fields, flowers and foliage with camera in hand.

By contrast, the waving goldenrod forests host throngs of intoxicated bees shambolically threading their way through the gold, and there are ants and Pennsylvania Leatherwings on every leaf and flower and pod.

Every year is different, and every season a wonder.