I come to a time every year when I realize, “It’s summer.” Bluegrass dries out while the buffalograss is thriving. Penstemons bloom in sequence, blue and yellow and red and purple, and around the end of July, broad-tailed hummingbirds arrive from the mountains and rest before migration.
Wasps on the feeder: hummingbird at my red shirt.
I hear the sound of their tails before I see them. That moment: The year has turned. Days are shorter, shrinking toward the longest night. The landscape, no longer bright green, has matured.
Seedheads of blue grama curl when the peaches are ready.
Soon it will be time to plant cool-season crops again.
It’s funny how we can feel nostalgic about a moment while we’re still living it, isn’t it? Perhaps it’s the memories of all those accumulated summers of our youth, and how quickly they passed. I do love the long, hot, lazy days. In my yard the bright Susans are opening up their Black Eyes to the sun.
I’m nostalgic for summer days at a Midwestern lake, not that I can get that around here.
.-= Beth Partin´s last blog ..MonHaibun: The Quality of Summer =-.