There’s that moment, when you’re riding on a Ferris wheel, when the gondola you’re riding in pauses at the circle’s highest point. The engine stops and you just dangle there. Around you the landscape looms in late-summer glory and beneath you the midway sparkles like a constellation of neon stars.
If the circle of seasons were a Ferris wheel, the little car we were riding in would be stopped at the very peak right now.
The natural world can seem incredibly intense these days. The meadow behind my house that I’ve been letting grow for a few years is just a riot of life – so lush it seems overwhelming. The purplish color palette of milkweed, Joe Pye, the clovers, and crown vetch, are at the end of their blossom and are being replaced by yellow and white: black-eyed susan and goldenrod, Queen Anne’s lace. Chokecherries hang in crimson bunches. Morning glory vines wind through the oatgrass and brome like flower-headed snakes.
What a growing year. While those of us with wet basements and mold problems have had just about enough of the rain, the moisture has graced the landscape with an almost Peruvian fecundity. The chicken coop, which most years has a few trailing vines running up the walls, is completely covered in wild grapes and Virginia creeper. My garlic crop, which is just now dry, has heads the size of onions. Friends of mine who collect mushrooms have baskets full of chanterelles cluttering up their kitchen counters.
Crop trees, wild and domestic, are loaded with fruit. This is the second bumper crop in a row for my apple trees in southwestern Vermont. A stand of ledgy hardwoods I was walking in recently had both acorns and beechnuts. The wild blackberries are prolific, as is the local bear population they attract.
The animal kingdom has transitioned away from the family inclinations of early summer. While we think of migrating birds in terms of October’s ducks and geese, some songbirds, having successfully performed their biological duty, actually start their migration in August. Wild canid puppies are on their own now. Deer are starting to gain fall weight and are currently polishing the velvet off their antlers.
Farm stands are in full swing and God bless America the eating is good these days. Local sweet corn is in, local melons. Kitchen tables are full of fresh garden salsas and dilly beans. With luck, your barbeque grill has been working overtime lately.
In the butterfly garden, look for coppers and fritillaries and sulphurs and viceroys. In the bottomland, smell wild mint and dried grasses. In the meadows see the spider webs collect the dew and shine in the fragile morning light.
It’s important to notice all these things now, while we’re paused at the Ferris wheel’s highest point. There will be an evening, this week or next, when you’ll feel summer turn. You’ll go for a dip in the creek and feel something different in the water. Or maybe you’ll be tending that grill, right at sunset, and you’ll hear some whisper in the evening air that makes you pause and cock your head. These hints are so subtle when they happen. So small. Just the faintest click, as the engine purrs to life, and our gondola – our summer – starts its decent towards fall.