These are the days for early mornings on the front porch, eating breakfast with the hummingbirds. Waking up to fresh breezes that blow the mist away just as the sun comes up. Dew-kissed spiderwebs glitter in the morning light and the scent of newly mown grass drifts across the yard.
It’s one of those between times – not quite fall but I can sense the end of summer. I can hear it in the late summer noise of the cicadas and the distant call of wild geese, practicing for their flight south from their temporary resting place. The garden frenzy is past, leaving a handful of peas, an occasional tomato, a few peppers, and dried corn stalks to cut for decorating the porch. I swing lazily, feeling no obligation to pick anything this morning, no inclination to shell peas or break beans and certainly not to freeze or cook anything. The freezer is just about full and there are enough cans of green beans in the basement until next year.
My hanging baskets look frazzled and the plants in the porch boxes are bravely holding on to their blooms. The garden mums clutch their buds, reluctant to show their colors until they are sure that fall is here. The potted mums I bought this week are more precocious – their yellow blooms are bursting out of the foliage this morning.
A couple of hibiscuses, late to the party, are blooming, their large pink blooms a magnet for the butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds. I wish I knew what I did to my hibiscus plants last fall and this spring because they have been especially beautiful and more prolific than usual. I would like to replicate whatever it was because they have been wonderful.
Sophie and Scout quarreled good-naturedly in the yard over a piece of unidentified cloth. “What have you got?” I asked. I probably don’t want to know, since by now it is past rescuing. Just as I asked the question, it became two pieces of unidentified cloth and I probably didn’t need it anyway. Carli burst through the dog door with their favorite new toy – a tattered piece of rope that unfortunately resembles a snake when they abandon it on the porch. Carli never just walks out a door – she darts out like she is late for the bus and surveys the yard to see who is watching. I know the dogs are pleased with the cooler mornings – poor Scout has spent most of his time inside for the last couple of months. He doesn’t even follow me outside during the heat of the day and it’s been a while since they have greeted me at the gate when I come home in the afternoons.
As I admired the hummingbirds, overdosing on sugar water at the feeders and performing aerial maneuvers worthy of x-wing fighters commanded by Luke Skywalker, I noticed a tiny green frog on the table by the swing. He sat staring at me, under a pot of lemongrass. “How did you get there?” I asked. He refused to say but sat there enjoying the first rays of sunshine, thinking about whatever frogs think about, while I finished my cereal.
I am thinking about fall.
The big combines are still idle, waiting for their moment.
The corn in the bottom land is tasseling, but the soybeans have not yet
started to turn yellow. Another cutting
of hay is on the ground up the road and the harvest moon is still a few weeks
away. Whatever I might have planned
doesn’t seem all that urgent. It’s a
good day to spend on the porch with my new little green friend.
