2 September 2012 - Change is coming

These last few weeks of August have been slowly changing--the changes of late summer moving into fall. There are many signals of this change if you watch and listen. The crickets are in full voice all night and into the day. There is nothing quite like the crickets to let you know change is in the air, even before the actual crispness of fall air appears.  There is some folk wisdom that says you can forecast the first frost by counting out six weeks from the first time you hear the fall cricket chorus. By my reckoning, that would put our first frost around October 5.  Hmm. Don't think that is right, seems too early, but I'm willing to see how it turns out.

In the meantime I am enjoying the crickets' songs and I love being lulled to sleep by the rising and falling refrain. 

The bee behavior also signals a change in the weather. As the days get shorter and the sun moves south the bees get frantic about food. We put the leftover dried up bits of cat food out for the magpies. In the last week the yellow jackets have started fighting the magpies for the little bits of meat. As many as three or four hornets will surround one little piece and chew it to nothing. I'm not sure if they are carrying pieces off, or just eating it. 

 

The honey bees are working the flowers even harder, and at this time of year they are not bothered by me at all. Normally they fly off when I approach, but now I am ignored no matter how close I come. I spent about 30 minutes watching the bees assaulting the scaevola. It is an interesting plant. The flower has a tube with petals on one side. In the center of the petals you can see the pistol and stamens. The bee has to land on the petals, push the stamens up and crawl into the tube. 

After the bee has been down the tube, the long stems of the upper part are sprung, making it easier for the next bee.  And in the picture below you can see the bee working its way down the tube going under the stem.

 

What can I say? This stuff fascinates me!

The bird population is changing as well. Midsummer gave us a plentitude of hummingbirds. We were filling four feeders every four to five days to the tune of five and a half cups of sugar each time. We still have hummingbirds, but the population has definitely decreased and we are filling the feeders once every 7 to 10 days. 

The house finches and goldfinches are coming back and squabbling about the sunflower feeders. The robins are starting to flock up. Magpies were with us all winter and spring then disappeared for the summer. They are beginning to show up again which adds a lot of noise and fun to our days. 

In the late summer interesting insects show up. Maybe it is because they are large enough to see now. 

Lovely long-horned beetles would appear on the patio then disappear. This one was over three inches long.  

Another harbinger of change are the different cloud formations. In late summer we start seeing big, puffy cumulus clouds. They move across the sky very quickly, but afford us great amusement as we sit on the porch sipping our coffee. Look! A dragon head with a poodle body! The shapes last a very short time, but it is fun to look for objects. 

Late summer also brings fruit. In our yard that means crabapples. We have two kinds of crabapples--larger edibles and smaller mealy apples from our ornamental tree. These beauties are about the size of ping pong balls and they urge me to make jelly.  I grew up with my mother making crabapple jelly. 

The ornamental tree is absolutely loaded with crabapples. They are rotting in the grass under the tree. You can hear them falling on the roof even with no breeze at all. Today as I walked under the tree one apple fell on my head.  OUCH! I should probably pick them up and save them for the deer this winter. 

Speaking of deer, late summer also sees the return of the deer. We have surprised a young buck and doe in our yard several times, and to my great dismay, I have discovered plants whose leaves have been sucked off the plants due to these very large rodents. Last week we watched a doe and fawn cross the street in front us. Note to self: buy more Deer Repel. 

I have three large pots on our front porch that were looking great! The plants were full, bushy and happy. I was admiring how the caladiums were flaunting big showy leaves after a rocky start.  Here is the before. The happy caladium has the large white leaves on the far left.




In this photo you can see that the leaves were sucked right off the plant leaving bare stems. Grr. That same night there was a lot of damage done to my rose bushes, ornamental sweet potato vines, petunias and impatiens. Flowers were eaten off the plants, but the stems and leaves were untouched. Almost like the deer just wandered through for dessert. 

Plants are changing too. And not just because the deer are deforming them. Seeds are happening. We pass a cluster of milkweeds on our daily walk and have watched them as they first pushed up out of the ground, grew, bloomed, and now, as the pods open and the seeds escape. It makes it hard to get anything done when all I want to do is sit and watch something happen, and there are a whole lot of somethings happening!

The leaves on the mountain trees are beginning to turn red and orange. It seems really early this year. It has been dry for so long that the color isn't lasting. Many trees are just dropping their leaves with no color change at all. Yet, according to my brother, September and October usually have a lot of thunderstorms. I hope so!