Hunting the Wild Persimmons

Woodland Goldenrod

Running on empty today.  This presentation has been hours in the making.  I leave it, come back, leave it, come back; the lack of passion comes, I think, from a brain that's living somewhere else this week...far, far away.  My opening moment, written last, to introduce you to a peek of the gardens in September when there's a slight crispness to the morning air, the days are lukewarm, the evenings are cooling, and the rains come and go.  A time to start the weekends with breakfast on the deck under the colorful new umbrella canopy, and perhaps write a few lines in my notebook.  I was going to say read a new book, it sounds so poetic; but in reality I haven't read a book for quite a while.  I'd have to give up blogging if I wanted time to do that :) 

Floating Hearts

Yellow Blackberry Lily

Hairy Sunflower

Hearts-a-bustin

There are times when I look at my gardens, especially when I'm trying to photograph its art, and I'm amazed that nothing looks magnificent, nothing takes my breath away, nothing makes my heart sing.  I'll take the photos anyway, usually ones that focus on just a small part of it all. I'll take hundreds and hundreds of snaps of every little snippet that catches my eye, hoping in the end to be able to love at least a few frozen moments of that day.  For this shoot, over 800 shots, and my eyes are screwy from weeding out the imperfections of the whole mess.  I hardly liked anything, and the landscapes were the first to go.  I hate that.  People must wonder if there really is a garden that all these little shots belong to. 

Flowering Dogwood Leaf - 'Appalachian Spring' 

Goldenrod Soldier Beetle

I stand in the midst of this skyrocketing clump of goldenrod that has bent under the weight of rain to arch over the stone path.  Carpenter bees, those little rascals that sometimes like to intimidate, and a lone honey bee are too busy with the flowers to even give me a thought.  Soldier beetles flee if I get too close, but the striking orange patched smoky moths are slow to frighten.  The black twice stabbed lady beetles with their two red dots hide under the flowers and are impossible to photo.  Varieties of wasps travel from flowers to flowers as a group of tiny black beetles make their way across a single clump of yellow.  Dark flower scarabs travel all through the clumps, then open their hard shell wing covers to fly on to the next.  Many types of tiny ground bees are mixed in with the lot.  Their bodies brush against me as they fly about, some stopping to see if I'm a flower since I'm foolishly wearing blue.  

           

Dark Flower Scarab

There's trouble in the gardens this September, where even though the calendar says autumn has begun, in reality summer hasn't let him enter...she's locked him out.  She's throwing a party as the days begin to cool...she has no intentions of leaving quite yet.  A weed whacking frenzy amidst flying plant bits and billowing clouds of dust to clear all that mess from the gathering of rocks above the west pond rim, left the feeling of little legs just below my right elbow.  A quick glance, a gasp, and small shake sent that black widow falling to the ground as my shoe did a tap dance double time where she landed.   

Honey Bee

There's double trouble in Dustin's native patch of greens...as the wild ones crawl over and under his fence in search of wild persimmons.  He's spending an alarming amount of time jabbering himself to the point of annoyance as the opossum makes his after dark rounds.  Haven't met, nor do I look forward to meeting, that skunk sending Dustin running for the back deck door with his tail tucked between his legs to announce his entrance into the kitchen with an odor so pungent he was scooped up in two seconds flat and given three sudsy baths to his hind quarters, sending me to work that next morning yawning my life away.  Dustin's been grounded.  The only after dark potty breaks now are the ones on leash to the end of driveway mail box post. 

Orange Patched Smoky Moth