That Inferno Lovingly Called August

Air-Conditioned Bliss

It’s that time of year in my neck of the country when the asphalt street traveling past my house is in frying pan mode ready to sauté my doggies tootsies on a short walk, and the sun bathed greenery weeps and wilts when the last rain was more than a week ago.

 

When one walks to the garden hose sprinkling the baked earth to cool it off in the high humidity 95 degree weather that feels more like 105 degrees, and sweat immediately begins trickling down their back and behind, it’s that time of year when August is here.

Cardinal feather in birdbath

Spicebush unripen berries

Spicebush ripened berries

Clematis with seed heads

"Hot Lips" Turtlehead Plant next to Joe Pye Weed that is going to seed.

Clematis with Beautyberry and its unripen fruit.

Effects of drought behind flower.

Ground beneath juniper with tiny juniper berries

 and scale-like fallen needles

Natures been harsh with this beautyberry and her unripen fruit,

but she was planted by birds and has survived many years.

Clematis "Corinne" second flowering in August.

Flowers are about 3" in diameter.

A type of Hover Fly, I think.

Cicada wing in birdbath.

The cicada was probably a snack for a visiting bird.

Echinacea purpurea going to seed

I no longer know this native sunflowers name.

It was the only survivor of three plants,

and has come back year after year.  

It struggles a bit in the prairie garden.

Rough Blazing Star (Liatris aspera) growing in large pot with Aster Paten.

It will eventually have purple blooms along with the lavender aster flowers.

Of the many I planted in a sunny spot in the garden,

only one is growing this year (about 18" tall).

Since they all grew last year, 

I'm sure Vic accidently pulled them up with the weeds :'(

He says not true - I say 'tis true.

The potted plant is 5' tall and very happy.

Wild Senna (Senna hebecarpa)

 with flowers and immature seed pods

Leucauge venusta, commonly called orchard spider, is an orb weaver spider

Viburnum Winterthur berries in their white phase.

They will turn pink, then blue as they mature.

Least Skipper Butterfly or Delaware Skipper Butterfly, maybe.  

It's a skipper, but skippers drive me crazy trying to identify one.

  So many different types.

Lacey keeping tabs on me.

I seem to have nothing to say...

…so, a sweet poem written by a farmer who loved a little creature of nature.  It's said this little tyke will lull the calm into refreshing sleep, and lure the tense into that vortex of repetitious sound that leads to insanity.  What do you think?

An August Cricket

                  by Arthur Goodenough

When August days are hot and long,

      And the August hills are hazy,

And clouds are slow and winds also,

      And brooks are low and lazy.

When beats the fierce midsummer sun,

      Upon the drying grasses;

A modest minstrel sings his song

      To any soul that passes.

A modest, yet insistent bard

      Who while the landscape slumbers;

And nature seems, herself asleep,

      Pours out his soul in numbers.

His song is in a tongue unknown,

      Yet those, methink, who hear it

Drink in it's healing melody

      Renewed in frame and spirit.

His life is brief as is the leaf

      To summer branches clinging!

But yet no thought of death or grief,

      He mentions in his singing.

No epic strain is his to sing, -

      No tale of loss or glory, -

He has no borrowed heroines,

      His heroes are not gory.

He is no scholar; all he knows

      Was taught by his condition,

He never studied synthesis,

      Nor simple composition.

His lays are all of rustic themes;

      Of summer's joys and treasure

Yet scarce could Homer's masterpiece,

      Afford us keener pleasure.

I think the kerplunk of the wheel driving over the manhole cover, 

says it all.

I'm running on empty.

It's break time to finish my room of peace and quiet,

 although Vic added a television

which is not usually associated with peace and quiet.

I'm considering calling it The Robin's Nest, 

as a robin's nest is usually a place of safe haven.

Take care.

This post is linked to:

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day

My Corner of the World

Saturday's Critters