cinquefoil

This blog is basically about the changes in the natural world here in rural Vermont. There are times during the year when changes are either easy or hard to notice. Spring and Fall are easy. There are lots of changes. Surprisingly the winter season is the next easiest. I don't really know why. The middle of the summer is the hardest, not a lot is changing around here. The saving grace in past years has been that there was a lot of activity in the human realm. People were vacationing, traveling. There was a lot of sporting activity of all kinds. Those were the things that pulled me through. This year though, things are much quieter.

The other day I was driving around in the pasture in the back, and I noticed the cinquefoil was starting to blossom. It is a lighter shade of yellow than many of the others, but beautiful.

This photo really doesn't do it justice. Anyway, I thought a brief posting on the yellows of summer would be nice. I went out in the morning and in the field where I had seen a lot of cinquefoil activity just the day before, I couldn't find one flower to photograph. It was cloudy and I thought that maybe the flowers were closed. I scrutinized the field very closely and still couldn't find any evidence of cinquefoil. I went back to that same field yesterday to record some activity on the Linden trees (more on that later), and, once again, the field was full of flowers. It was in the afternoon. Seemingly the cinquefoil are late risers. I was able to glean just a little bit more information about some of my neighbors here in the natural world. This is not something I learned from the pages of my wildflower book. It was learned by looking.

It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper understanding.

Vincent van Gogh

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