Friday, June 26, 2020

Friday Ramble - The Measure of Our Days

Nearing the end of June, trees on the Two Hundred Acre Wood are gloriously leafed out, and vast swaths of woodland are as dark as night - the shadowed alcoves are several degrees cooler than the sunlit fields skirting them. Winding strands of wild clematis wrap around the old cedar rail fence by the main gate, and the silvery posts and rails give off a fine dry perfume.

There are orange and yellow hawkweeds, buttercups and clovers, daisies, tall rosy grasses and ripening milkweed, several species of goldenrod, trefoils and prickly violet bugloss - all are moved by the arid summer wind and swaying in place. Open areas of waving greenery have an oceanic aspect, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the masts of tall ships poking up here and there.

Birds are everywhere, red-tailed hawks circling overhead, swallows and kingfishers over the river, bluebirds on the fence, grosbeaks dancing from branch to branch in the overstory and caroling their pleasure in the day and the season. I can't see them, but mourning doves are cooing somewhere nearby.

The air is filled with wings. Fritillaries and swallowtails flutter among the cottonwoods, never pausing in their exuberant flight or alighting to have their pictures taken.  Dragonflies (mostly skimmers, clubtails and darners) spiral and swoop through the air, a few corporals among them for good measure.

I began this morning with the words "It is high summer". Then I remembered that the solstice has passed by, and I went back and started again. And so it goes in the great round of time and the seasons . . . Many golden days are still to come, but we have stepped into the the languid waters that flow downhill to autumn.

4 comments:

Barbara Rogers said...

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Guy said...

Not the slope towards autumn already?
Sigh?
But many beautiful bird filled days ahead.

Guy

Mystic Meandering said...

Yes! But still so much of the magic of Summer left... If we could just avoid the 90 degree weather it would make it all the more fun... ;)

christinalfrutiger said...

We have just stepped into summer and we need to be in that season and fully enjoy it and not think of it as a downward spiral towards the colder, darker months! That's depressing! Hah!
Beautiful photo today...of SUMMER! :)