Not a field of grain

Spring slides into summer, and a choppy slide it is. A little here, a little there, a back slide for a few days. At the moment Roundtop is in a back slide towards the spring we never quite had. The nights are cool, the days take until noon to warm up. It’s comfortable weather, with long June evenings. I can appreciate the long hours of daylight in weather like this. The skies are not yet fully dark even at 9:30 p.m.


But when the temperature journeys and stays into summer’s heat and haze, the long hours of daylight becomes something simply to endure. Then, I wait for sunset and the relief from the heat that usually brings. But not today. Today, I can enjoy the long evenings

This morning on my walk with Baby Dog, I discovered a patch of carpet moss. From close-up the female moss structures look like a field of ripening grain. When conditions are dry, the moss capsules open and release the spores. The weather has been dry for spring here, but I don’t know if it is dry enough for the capsules to open. Even if it’s dry enough for them to think about releasing the spores, a hard rain is predicted for the tomorrow and the weekend, so the moss might change its plans.

Baby Dog isn’t much interested in moss, especially when she just spied a deer slipping back into the cover of the woods. Moss doesn’t move, deer do. Enough said.