TODAY? TOMORROW?

Each morning I look out, staring into the darkness, checking for movement…expecting, wondering, hoping. 

A single question is uppermost in my mind: Is today the day?

I try to not be too discouraged by the empty moments. It is, after all a bit early. 

Cold, too—48˚F according to the big thermometer just beyond the breakfast table window. That's getting down there. And the weather oracles are calling for a low of 38˚F tomorrow night, which has to be the—

Wait! What's that? A tiny moving shape among the shadows. Yes! The rubythroats are still here…at least one, though who knows for how long. Tomorrow is the last day of September. The weather has been rainy, windy, and decidedly cool for the past week. Surely the little hummingbird now sipping from the feeder is one of the few lingerers remaining. 

The earth turns, time moves on, summer has given way to autumn which is following the endless circular path toward winter, a new year, another spring. So it has been; so it will be. To everything there is a season.

Nevertheless, I am blessed. Today I still have hummingbirds!

———————

TAKING MY TIME

Silver-spotted Skipper on Ironweed.

It's a cloudy day here along the riverbank. The weather forecast calls for a 50-percent chance of showers this morning and 20-percent during the afternoon. Which is fine by me, even though it is a Sunday; we can use the rain. 

Earlier, when I went out to refill  the big seed feeder near the front deck, I realized that while I was making my early-morning rounds nearly two hours later than usual, the night was nevertheless just then giving way to dawn. Time moves on. The seasons turn. Autumn will be here a scant six weeks hence and we've already lost more than an hour-and-a-half of total daylight since summer's beginning back on June's solstice. Before you know it, we'll have carved our jack-o'-lanterns for Halloween, celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas, and suddenly find ourselves ringing in a brand new year.

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it an ironic paradox that as our bodies slow down, time speeds up?

But enough of such depressive ruminations! There's still plenty of this year ahead to enjoy, still a wealth of days and adventures to savor—from the delicious table fare of homegrown garden vegetables that actually taste like real food, to the visual delight of fields rich with goldenrod's bright dazzle and spattered with jeweled clumps of purple asters.

While the great wheel may turn inexorably, I intend to take my time.

———————

COLOR STILL SLOW

There's a pond up the road from here—an elongated bit of water, curved on one end into a shape resembling a fish hook. The "hook"segment is quite narrow, and surround by scrub woods. There are trees also growing right down to the water along one side of the pond's "shank" portion—though the opposite shore is mucky and shallow, with a wide band that can be either wet or dry, depending on recent rains; beyond this marshy flat, a low, wooded hill rises.

The pond doesn't see many visitors. It's a fair walk in from the road and there's no easy, distinct path. You have to know the pond is there and want to go; most folks don't. Which suits me just fine. I like the forsaken places.

Such neglect pleases the various waterfowl, too—the ducks and geese who regularly raise young here in the spring, and like to feed and loaf here the remainder of the year…at least when the water is open. Herons stalk the shallows. I've see the occasional kingfisher, and once, more than a decade ago, an osprey. And of course there's also the usual Ohio compliment of muskrats, mink, turtles, snakes, frogs, dragonflies, and birds of all sorts, from waders to warblers to woodpeckers. Whitetail deer, as well. And coyotes, raccoons, and possums, seeing as how we're making a list. But I, and maybe one or two like-minded human ramblers, are probably the rarest critters to amble the pond's parameter.

Soon after breakfast, I stole a few minutes from pressing work to make a quick check on the pond. The morning was dark and damp, 38F chilly degrees. The surrounding color wasn't as advanced as I'd expected—though another few days will doubtless make a big difference. When I visited a week ago the landscape was still practically all green.

For whatever reason there wasn't much in the way of wildlife to be seen. At least not by me today. No ducks or geese on the water, or great blue herons to squawk and startle from their fishing. Just a swath of dark water, a yellow-gold hillside, and an October sky the color of old pewter.

I did manage a few quick shots. I'm sure I could have found a lot of other things if I hadn't been so rushed. Making photos, like a lot of good and pleasurable things in life, is mostly a matter of persistence and patience. I can generally muster both. Unfortunately for me this morning, I just didn't have time.

UNDERSTANDING THE LIGHT

Just after sunrise, when I stepped outside with the dog, the first thing that stuck me was the unusual silence. Of course, being that I live beside a woods-lined river located in that borderland beyond well-manicured suburbia and what a farmer would consider genuine shaggy rurality, the silence was more conditional than complete; not really a total lack of sound, but rather an absence of the usual background noise.

The only bird sound I heard during my twenty-minute sortie along the riverbank and to various corners of the yard around the cottage, was a single brief peal of maniacal laughter from a pileated woodpecker on the distant lower end of the island across from the house. Otherwise, not a blue jay or cardinal, robin or titmouse—not even one of my beloved Carolina wrens—had yet found either voice or reason to disturb the hush.

Even the river, following its ancient path from source to sea, seemed muted. Though we’ve had several good rains during the past couple of weeks, the water finding its way down and through the long riffle—over, around, under the stones and gravel and those few scattered boulders whose smooth, rounded edges speak of time measured in millennia—the sound of its passage was scarcely more than a stealthy liquid whisper—shhhhhhhh….

The air was damp and a cool you could rightly call chilled. Not cold, but what my grandfather called “nippy.” A temperature that’s been hanging around cold’s neighborhood long enough to pick up certain bad habits. I was glad I’d slipped on a heavy shirt before coming out.

A month ago the sun would have been well up by now. A month ago the birds—in spite of the fact their business of establishing territory and finding a mate, nesting, hatching and subsequently feeding hungry fledglings, had all long passed—were still raising their voices to the rising sun; while that morning chorus might not have approached the joyous volume of May’s, or even June’s, it was still loud and decidedly enthusiastic. A month ago I could have padded around the property’s boundaries wearing nothing more than shorts and flip-flops and been perfectly comfortable.

Now, the silence—or what passes for silence, anyway—along with the later dawn and brisk temperature, was telling. A portent of changing times and days to come.

Looking down the river, with a thick wall of greenery along either side, it is hard to imagine those banks stark and open, leafless; difficult to recall the gray-green color of the water, or a sheath of pale ice along its borders. And yet I know that season is coming.

The light this morning was still warm and golden. But there was the gold of turning maples in there, and of October’s shagbark hickories.

Maybe that’s why the birds were so quiet…because they, too, noticed and understood the light.