An August Forest

Where has all the energy gone?

The frantic activity of spring is a distant memory. The daily arrivals, the singing out for territory and mates. Frantic nest building, the exhausting back and forth, a thousand times, searching, hunting, feeding. But it was nothing compared to the fledglings. Oh, the drama played out before us each day!

Now, August reveals a forest of quiet calm and stillness. Crickets are heard throughout the daytime. Yellow billed cuckoo only briefly call during the hottest part of the afternoon and Mourning doves occasionally coo from the branches of pine.

A barred owl can make you pause in the pulling, picking, and pruning of harvest so you can give it your full attention. It is odd to hear their barking during the day, it focuses your attention, and brings you into the moment.

The only dependable source of song is from the wren.

Almost every morning, at first light, she announces the dawn. I have grown so fond of her. So, expecting of her dominance and expertise over the morning garden that I let her conduct her own inspections. As she allows mine.

Although checklists may differ, I find we complement each other.

An hour after dusk, the katydids take over and eclipse all but coyotes, barred owls and if we are fortunate, screech owls.

To list them all sounds like there is still so much going on.

I suppose there is.

New fungi appear each day on the forest floor and on the skeletal remains of dead and dying trees.

I was excited to find a small gathering of “ghost pipe” this week. A ghostly white parasitic plant completely devoid of chlorophyll.

Acorns are maturing on the oaks, elderberry is ripe, and the blue fortune hyssop plays host to butterflies and bumble bees all day long.

It seemed like yesterday, wood thrushes, and cardinals serenaded us into the evening.

Each year is different. The cycles of plants and animals change. Last year, scarlet tanagers, indigo buntings and hermit thrushes were everywhere and the dominant song of the woodland.

This year has seen an abundance of robins and chipping sparrows. Neither bird has diminished the forest aria.

I threw the ball for our German shepherds Bosley and Lucy this evening, then walked up to the “Orchard house”.

I sat with them on the deck overlooking the orchard. Their panting sounded like two freight trains and was so intense it shook my chair.

Summer is coming to its end.

We are another year older.

My passion for life has not diminished as summers has. She seems tired. I feel inspired.

It won’t be till winters end

before we see spring again.

Then we will dance across the ridgetops, down the hillsides and into the valleys and hollows in our lovers embrace. She’ll have so much to show us and we’ll be as excited as she.

Today while walking in the woods I found a dead cedar waxwing.

It didn’t seem injured in any way. It’s breast was plump and eyes clear.

It made me remember, not many animals of the forest have the privilege of living into old age.

I wondered if this one left with such a luxury?

Summers end flows on like a soothing sigh of relief.

Soon the weeding will end, the cropping, the pruning. The manipulation, the controlling of chaos, a summers long battle to prevent the forest from taking back our gardens and orchard.

In time, the forest will win, and we will be part of it’s history. A brief footprint covered in humus. Maybe the forest will whisper our song, as every seed planted was a note and every life saved and returned to the forest an instrument.

Two of our dogs are buried here. Eddy the crow and Flo’ the flying squirrel, their bones lay here as well. Valued members of our tribe.

Our legacy will be one of nurturing life. I ‘ll leave my bones here too, and walk into eternity with that on my resume’ .