Fruitful Conifers

It has been far too hot and humid for rambling during the day, but on a walk early yesterday evening, I noticed that the conifers in the village are all engaged in manufacturing cones, surely an indication that summer is waning.

These artfully suspended green and russet pendants are the female elements of nature's conifer proliferation scheme, each cone bearing within itself a vast multitude of little conifers-to-be, new forests of lofty branches in the making and great fragrance yet to come.