Last one?

Autumn is not yet in its full glory, but there’s glory enough in the autumn of today to know that summer is gone but winter is still miles away. The season is well and truly here, no half measures at the cusp between two seasons.

The late summer flowers, and indeed nearly all flowers, are gone. The lone exception that I found on my walk yesterday was a single chicory flower covered with drops of rain.  Even the fall asters have faded to brown, and other flowers on this stalk had already gone to seed.  Only this one late bloomer was in evidence.

I am soon ready for winter, if not quite there yet. I need to clean my gutters, a job I will probably have to repeat before the snow falls.  And I need to move the chicken pen to its winter quarters, though that isn’t something that needs done just yet.  So far, I have resisted closing my bedroom window for the season. It is ajar but with the nights approaching the first frost of the season, I probably won’t be able to leave it that way much longer. I like hearing the sounds of the forest outside my cabin, but once I close the windows, much of that will be lost until it is warm enough to open them again in the spring.

Chicory faces the morning sun

Chicory

 Nearly everywhere I look right now I find a blooming chicory plant, usually dozens of the beautiful blue flower. Chicory is in that category of plant that some people consider a weed, but those are often the same people who think anything they didn’t plant in a garden is a weed. I come from a different stripe, one that appreciates a flower that is as independent as the chicory, able to grow in nearly any soil and as beautiful as the summer sky on a cloudless day.

This year chicory seems particularly profuse at Roundtop, in that cycle of life that waxes and wanes, some years in abundance and other times not quite so much. As the sun rises, the flowers turn towards it, the blue petals greeting the sun after the night’s darkness. They seem greedy for the day’s new light, but during the brightest part of the day, the flowers will often close, as though the sun grows too strong for them.  When the weather is cloudy or gloomy, the flowers stay out all day, brightening a dull day with that intense shade of blue.

AAaaahhh!

Midsummer flowers are beginning to appear around the cabin. Even though summer is officially just a week old, the August-like heat of the past two weeks is spurring growth. The blue of the chicory flower is suddenly everywhere in evidence. The first brown-eyed susans are starting as well.

This early morning I watched two young downy woodpeckers out and about exploring near their nest hole. The white of the young birds looked more grayish than white, and the young males have a bit of muted red on their foreheads. Some books suggest that the young birds are a brighter white than the adults, but I didn’t see evidence of that this morning. Perhaps it’s too soon. When adults, the males end up with a nice red patch on the back of their heads.

I didn’t get a storm last night, even though a nice cold front moved across the area. By evening, I could begin to feel the humidity, if not the temperature, starting to lower. Today is cooler and the humidity low, so the weather feels comfortable for the first time in ages. This morning the bedraggled-looking young turkey vulture that roosts on the top of a nearby dead tree was already airborne before 6:15 a.m. When the humidity was high, it stayed on top of that tree, its wings extended for at least an hour longer. Even the turkey vultures like the improved weather!