Monday, August 18, 2008

Flowers and Trees of Late Summer

The air is filled with the smell of burning as people take advantage of tinder dryness to clean fields, meadows, ditches, yards and gardens. It has not rained since mid-July. It is hot…damned hot. Temperatures have hit the upper 30º’s by noon every day in August.

When we got back from Turkey we removed the tin foil from our West windows, for some reason I no longer recall..We may no longer be considered trailer park trash by my daughter but my office is 30º by night fall. At least the nights are cool*. It goes down to 15º so we can sleep.

The brilliant reds of spring and summer have been replaced by the golds and rusts of Zinias and Marigolds and the pinks of Cosmos and Hollyhocks. Many flowers in the beds along the street have already gone to seed. The petunias, of course, struggle ever onwards until winter stops them completely.

The carefully tended graves of April have grown to weeds, grass and wildflowers. They rest peacefully in the heat of the day. though some have been lovingly tended for the second time, it almost seems a shame to disturb them..

Mountain ash trees and other berry shrubs are bright orange and red, ready to feed the birds over winter. Rosehips by September will be ready to dry for winter tea.

* ♫♫The nights are cool, and I’m a fool; each star’s a pool of water…cool water♫♫. Sorry about that. Bursting into song on cue is a family tradition. It doesn’t only happen in movies and on Broadway. Never use the word “Sisters” around Ky and Lyn, for example.

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