You know it's mid-August when...

...It’s time for the Perseid meteor shower! I got up at 4 a.m. this morning and went up to the Roundtop’s north parking lot to watch the Perseids.  Wow!  What a show!  For once it was clear and no moon was up to brighten the sky.  Orion, that familiar winter warrior,  was just above the eastern horizon.  The milky way stretched the length of the sky.

I saw lots of meteors—one almost large enough to call a fireball, several really good “ordinary” meteors and lots of little ones.   In the 45 minutes or so I was there before dawn intervened and ruined the viewing I probably saw 35-40 meteors.  If I’d brought something to lay on I could have seen more of the sky at one time and likely found even more. It was the Perseid show I’d seen in years.

...I have to wear my headlamp in the mornings when I walk the dogs again. The days are growing shorter.

...The thistles are blooming and the American goldfinch are enjoying the riches.  Pokeweed berries look fully formed but are still green—it’s not that late in the season just yet.

It’s headlamp time again.  I’ve reached the day when I need my headlamp when I walk Baby Dog in the mornings. I didn’t need the headlamp for the entire walk this morning, but I did need it until we walked beyond the edge of the forest. The morning was overcast again, as so many August mornings have been this year and that didn’t help.

I will have to take back my claim of last week that if I kept Baby Dog off lead, she would not be interested in chasing a deer. This morning we walked up onto a nice buck in velvet and a doe.  The doe bounded off without incident, but the buck ran into a high mesh “fence” that’s supposed to keep paintball pellets from flying beyond where Roundtop wants them to go.  I know of a golf driving range that uses a similar containment fence, so you might have seen what I’m talking about at one of those.

The buck kept leaping into the fence and being bounced back. I was starting to fear he would break a leg.  The edge of the mesh wasn’t far from the deer, so I moved to my left, hoping the deer would move to the right where it would soon run out of mesh and could escape. That worked!  The buck leapt away, white tail flagging.  He leaped like a gazelle with every step, no simple running here.

Well, all this was too much for Baby Dog.  She pulled like a plow horse, and I could barely hold on to her.  I’ve never had her pull so hard, and I didn’t know just how strong she could be when she is determined.  So, it’s not just rabbits that make her take off, it’s deer, too.  Sorry, Baby Dog, the leash is going to have to stay on.

My photo today was taken on Saturday in the little town of Wellsville.  I went to their annual fireman’s carnival for a good dinner of a hot turkey sandwich.  I parked a good distance from the crowded festival and walked through the town to it.  I found this swallowtail butterfly amongst the flowers in this person’s yard.