So, Camera Girl and I are walking through our annual farewell to summer ritual. Today I picked the very last string beans and the crops of raspberries and her beloved grape tomatoes are visibly shrinking down to the end. She picked the last eggplants but they were too small to eat. The pool has been closed for a couple of weeks and now I’m putting away all the chairs and tables and stuff for the winter. Even the Japanese beetles are dying off and today I saw one of the preying mantids looking lonely for something juicy to eat. Although he seemed to be making due on small red dragonflies. These fliers are still prevalent but also seem to be running out of food. The various flowers are almost all dying. The only thing that hasn’t bloomed yet are the Montauk Daisies and the Wolfbane. I guess there are still plenty of bees; bumble and honey, but there seems to be a desperation in the way they jump around on the goldenrod trying to get all the nectar and pollen before their neighbors get to it.
And with the kids all back in school, it’s a little too quiet for Camera Girl. She takes it to heart when the grandkids aren’t around for more than a week at a time. I try to cheer her by reminding her how exhausting it can be when the summer schedule fills up a couple of weeks with back, to back, to back kids’ events. Well, that wasn’t a good idea. It just got her mad at me! So, I just sympathize with her grandmaternal feelings and remind her that a plethora of birthday parties are sure to be starting up soon and she’ll be satisfyingly exhausted before she knows it.
And Camera Girl has lived up to her name lately she has spotted a number of photographic subjects for me. She let me know that there was a hawk perched on the back of the bench that we put next to her new pond. I got a bunch of shots through the living room window with the 400-600mm lens. The contrast wasn’t as good as I would have liked but when I download them, I hope they’re passably good. She also spotted a big green (so she tells me) caterpillar on a walk we took in the park. We took it home for photos and it turned out to be a type of sphynx moth (white-lined sphinx moth; Hyles lineata). I was trying to keep it to hatch out the moth but the darned thing didn’t know it was supposed to like tomato plant leaves. So, I let the recalcitrant larva go on its way.
Tomorrow we are thinking about going to an antique car show which is something that people around Dunwich seem to do a lot. But we’ll have to see. Tomorrow is the last day of my five-day promotional book giveaway and I’ve been like some kind of fanatic watching the dashboard tickers recording the orders. I’m kind of obsessed. But maybe I’ll tear myself away to see Henry Ford’s innovative horseless carriages paraded down the streets of various Dunwich environs. Enjoy the day.