Thursday, August 8, 2013

High Summer


Exuberant Indian-grass (Sorghastrum nutans), Black-eyed-Susans (Rudbeckia hirta), and Queen Anne's-lace (Daucus carota) on a crystal clear morning
Cicadas are shrieking during the day.  Katydids are sawing away in the trees during the early hours of darkness.  New York ironweed's flat-topped, regal purple flowers and Joe-Pye-weed's dusky magenta globes are heavily laden with swallowtails and bumblebees.  And the first of the early-flowering goldenrods have burst like sparks onto the otherwise emerald meadow blanket.  It's high summer in the northern Piedmont!

4 comments:

Mark P said...

Our summer has been unusually mild and wet. I'm not complaining. It seems like we've had so many summers with very high temperatures and little rain that this is a welcome change.

Carolyn H said...

Summer indeed! It is turning into a great year for tiger swallowtails and spicebush swallowtails in my area

packrat said...

One time, after having lived for years in the desert Southwest, I returned in mid-August to visit my mother in Youngstown, Ohio. As we walked along the grassy paths of Fellows Riverside Gardens in Mill Creek Park--the temperature 90 degrees with 90% humidity, perspiration pouring out of my forearms--I wondered how I had survived growing up there without sweating to death. That's how I remember high summer in the Buckeye State.

Scott said...

Packrat: Both my brother and brother-in-law, who have moved from Ohio to San Diego, have had occasion to visit the East during mid-summer and have reported reactions like yours. They've also added how glad they are that they've moved to a more arid climate.