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!