Last day of August

Bicyclists out for a morning ride on Clarendon Ave. New mown hay drying in the fields. Working in the garden. Dog sitting on a porch. Ice coffee. Deer eating apples in the field in the back.

snowball trees

It is surprising how long the season of flowers actually lasts. At this time of year these trees begin to bloom. If I remember correctly, it is some kind of hydrangea. Some of the natives call them snowball trees.

cause and effect

Yesterday I was heading into town to run some errands. On my way out, I saw this scene from the kitchen window, and decided it would make a nice photo for this blog. I took my camera out in the back, took the picture, and headed back inside. When I got back in the kitchen, I noticed that my shoes were completely soaked with morning dew. We are entering the season of dew, no question about that.
But then I got in the car for the trip into town. As I was pulling on to Route 133, I noticed the difficulty that east bound drivers were having with the morning sun. Sunrise is later in the day, and the angle of the sun is lower in the sky. By the time I got to West Rutland the blue sky had given way to dense fog. It had rained the day before which I'm sure contributed to the fog, but I think it's fair to say that the season of dew coincides with the season of fog which has to do with the transition from summer to fall.
I drove into town and saw children waiting for school buses for the first time since June. It seemed to me that you could look at these as a number of discrete occurrences, but it really seemed to be facets of the same general phenomenon, the days getting shorter and cooler. Cause and effect are one.

summer season

Day after day it has been sunny and warm over the past few weeks. But the wheel turns. Yesterday started off cloudy and cool. I have a morning meditation session which starts at 7:15 three days a week, and the room was dark when we started. We usually talk for a few minutes after the sitting, and Steve mentioned that it felt like we were descending into darkness, which we are. Summer turns to fall, and fall to winter. People talked about upcoming tasks and obligation associated with fall. Even though we still have a few weeks before Sept. 21st, it felt yesterday like the summer season has ended.

cows

Raining today, but August has been sunny and dry, rivers and creeks are low. After dinner at John & Ellen's on Sunday, I went up in the back to check on the cows. The water trough was empty. By the time that Andy arrived on Monday morning, the cows were very agitated. The plan was to move them to a lower pasture where we can access water from the Ira brook. The only problem was that one of the three new calves was nowhere to be found. Andy said that the mother will hide the calf with instructions not to move, no matter what.
They were in a big field full of high bushes. It looked to me like we could look for a long time before the calf was found. Andy scared up the calf relatively quickly, however. I thought we were set except the calf didn't head for mom like we expected. We had to find her, and move her again... and again. Finally she went to her mother, and we were able to make the expected transition.
The cows got their water in short order. There is plenty of feed for them so serenity returned to the herd of cows forthwith. Speaking of serenity, there is nothing more relaxing than looking out over a pasture full of contented cows. It's a feeling that's hard to explain. The feeling is accentuated when there are calves involved. They lay around, soaking up the sun, wiggling their ears, sleeping.  A calf sleeps the way a baby does...dead to the world. I think at many farms, the calves are separated from their mothers immediately and end up in less than idyllic circumstances. Here they get to hang with mom and the herd, lolling around, dining on milk and sweet green grass. I've got to believe that these days and weeks might actually be the highlight of their lives.

adorned

They're back, the vines of late summer. All of the bushes and shrubs look like they're adorned with pearly white tiaras.

weed

Viper's bugloss, another "weed."

raptors

I have been experiencing a lot of raptor activity lately. I have heard a lot of screeching from hawks high in the sky overhead. We have hawks that hang out in the back fields. The last couple of days I have seen a hawk buzzing the fields no more than 4-5 feet off the ground. I don't remember seeing that before. I am hearing a lot of owls. I hear them at night, but I have heard them the last two mornings after sunrise which is unusual.
I'm wondering what this means. Songbirds and woodpeckers are much more vocal in the spring. I think they are looking for mates, and marking off their territory. What is going on with the raptors? Are they marking off territory, getting ready for migration? Doug/Kim? 

Ohio corn

Mums appearing for sale in roadside stands. Second cuttings drying in the fields along Route 7 yesterday. It has been an amazing growing season in Vermont. Driving by some cornfields in Pittsford  that appeared to be 7-8 feet high. Looks like Ohio corn.

apples

Sweet corn is still for sales at stands throughout the area, but the minds of Vermonters are starting to turn towards apples. I had a long discussion about apples with a Zen priest over bagels on Sunday. There was an article in the Rutland Herald about the current apple crop on Monday. The rains of June have produced a bumper crop of industrial strength apples on steroids. I've never seen so many freakin' apples in my life. They shine in the trees like little green Christmas balls.
I remember back in May during apple blossom season when the morning temperature hovered around 30 degrees for a couple of days. I was worried that the apple crop would be lost. The deer need them to make it through the winter. My worries were unfounded. Allyn and I are talking about harvesting some and making apple sauce. 

life

August in Vermont is a time of grace, beauty...and poignance. I delivered a meal to a hospice patient on Thursday evening. She and her family lived in a beautiful place in Rutland Town, full of light and growing things. It must have seemed like such a sanctuary to her and her family; a place of safety, beauty, comfort, control. I was struck by the irony of it all, delivering a meal to someone who was dying in a setting that was so full of life. After dropping Erin and family off on Friday morning at the train, Allyn and I went to visit some long-time neighbors in Ira. The woman of the house was very ill. They live in what I consider to be one of the most beautiful settings in town, and it certainly seemed that way on that sunny morning. The house set back among large oak trees. Sun and shade, flowers and greenery, silence and birdsongs, a small garden brimming with vegetables down the hill in the back. The man of the house spoke about the feeling of Shangri La, and the description certainly seemed apt. It is the kind of place where you could live happily ever after except that there's no such thing as "happily ever after." August is followed by September, and so on.
Our friend died peacefully early on Sunday morning. Sometimes it's easy to forget that this is ultimately where we're all heading, especially on a sun-dappled morning in August in Vermont.

What is the meaning of life? That was all, a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark...
Virginia Woolf
Zen page a day calendar

Goodbye

Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving

Oh but then you know it was time for them to go.

By the winter fire, I'll still be dreaming.

I do not count the time

for who knows where the time goes?

Who knows where the time goes?

                                          Eva Cassidy

colors

The predominant color during the summer in Vermont, the Green Mountain State, is green. It won't be long, however, until the existing shades are much more muted in hue; mostly grey and browns. The tassels on the corn stalks in a field in West Rutland are among the first signs of the transition.

season of yellow

I know I've said this before, but one of the results of doing a blog like this is that you become more aware of what is disappearing in the natural world as well as what is appearing. The morning calls of the songbirds have essentially disappeared. The birdsongs are gone even if the songbirds remain. For many of them, the need to establish their own territories has gone away for the season.
The exception is the American Goldfinch. I understand that they are the latest species to produce young during the summer season. It is assumed that it has something to do with the late maturation of their primary sources of food, thistles, mullein and the like. They are a vibrant, energetic species, and the bright yellow plumage complements the ragweed, evening primrose, and others wildflowers during this late summer season of yellow.

August in Vermont

blossoms to seeds

There is a time when the blossoms of spring and early summer turn into the seeds of late summer and fall. That time has arrived. Red conical seed pods of the sumac are appearing. Goldfinches are gathering around the thistles in fields and pastures. When I got up this morning, there was the sound of something thumping to the ground in the front yard. I had no idea what it was and went to investigate. It was the sound of pine cones falling to the ground.

crickets

Yesterday Dave Chambers brought the tractor and the brush hog over per usual. What was not usual was that he gave me a lesson on how to use it, and I mowed a couple of fields myself. I had told them that with my retirement, I have time for that now. It was very satisfying, like stacking wood for winter. Sitting on top of the tractor offered opportunities to observe the world around me. Dragonflies gathering in the fields. They look like a squadron of WWII bombers. Sound of crickets and grasshoppers in the evening.

From the bough floating down the river, insect song.
Issa

Vermont

Yesterday I drove from Montreal to Springfield to Rutland. Haven't been on that 89/91 stretch for a long time. Driving through the heart of the Green Mountains, past the Winooski, White, and Ct. rivers on a sunny day in August, can't help but realize what a beautiful state this is.

Joe Pye Weed

Wildflowers are beautiful, but some of their names are not; bastard toadflax, cow vetch. Some of the names are as compelling as the flowers themselves. I've always liked the name Joe Pye Weed. Sounds like something out of a Mark Twain novel. Then there's Queen Anne's Lace, you can't to much better than that.

trips

Making some trips around the property with Eliza on foot and in the truck. We found some blackberries yesterday (she calls them black-blueberries). She gobbled them up. Day before yesterday we found some actual blueberries. Didn't know we had any on our property.