{"id":34799,"date":"2025-10-05T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=34799"},"modified":"2025-10-04T20:22:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T00:22:09","slug":"cruel-aesop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/05\/cruel-aesop\/","title":{"rendered":"Cruel Aesop"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last two weeks have been unseasonably warm here in Dunwich.\u00a0 And believe me I\u2019m not complaining.\u00a0 Summer-like days and mild nights is wonderful.\u00a0 Not to mention I must be saving money on heating oil.\u00a0 And it means we can enjoy the summer activities a little longer.\u00a0 For instance, the raspberry bushes are still producing fruit.\u00a0 Not as many as last month but enough to enjoy a treat from time to time.\u00a0 And I can still go out and take some macro shots of insects and the few flowers that haven\u2019t completely died.\u00a0 In fact, the wolfbane is about to bloom in the next week or so.\u00a0 And every night when I bring the dogs out for their final walk, I can hear the crickets chirping away.<\/p>\n

And there is an enormous number of them because the sound is everywhere and it is fairly loud.\u00a0 But at the same time, it has a different sound in the fall.\u00a0 This is based on the air temperature.\u00a0 The lower temperature means the sound will be lower pitched and slower.\u00a0 It\u2019s almost like a power hum that has fallen an octave.<\/p>\n

And to my subjective ears it sounds sad and confused.\u00a0 It\u2019s as if the crickets don\u2019t understand that they are preparing to die.\u00a0 Unlike Rutger Hauer\u2019s character in \u201cBladerunner;\u201d Roy Batty, they don\u2019t realize \u201cit\u2019s time to die.\u201d\u00a0 And that\u2019s exactly the vibe I get when I see the last of the dragonflies moving around the fields.\u00a0 They\u2019re confused and slowing down and it\u2019s as if their programming is failing.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t cover the case where the weather stays warm after they\u2019re supposed to have died from freezing.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also the case of the preying mantises.\u00a0 They\u2019re still walking around the gardens trying to find food or mates but they\u2019re running out of steam.\u00a0 Their eyes are already dark and they\u2019re going through the motions but they\u2019re already the walking dead.\u00a0 Even if I handed them food, I doubt they could eat it.<\/p>\n

The only insects that haven\u2019t succumbed to seasonal despair are the honey bees.\u00a0 They still go around visiting the last living flowers gathering pollen and nectar to bring back to the hive.\u00a0 And that\u2019s because they have a future and a plan.\u00a0 They\u2019re filling up the remaining cells in their combs with food to keep the hive going right through winter and into spring.\u00a0 Their program hasn\u2019t run out.<\/p>\n

Now, I am aware that this is just my emotional response to the realities of insect life and its relationship to seasonal variation.\u00a0 Evolution has crafted the life cycle of most insects in the non-tropical regions to include the death of adults in late fall.\u00a0 This is the result of millions of years of evolution and it\u2019s a fact of life.\u00a0 But humans are affected by these facts and have speculated about them going all the way back to Aesop in ancient Greece.\u00a0 He talked about the ant and the grasshopper that brings up the same exact dichotomy that I see between the honey bee and the cricket.<\/p>\n

And humans anthropomorphize these creatures making the ant a hard-working and thrifty fellow and the grasshopper a lazy, hedonistic good-for-nothing.\u00a0 Well, Aesop was preaching.\u00a0 While I find the cricket and even the dragonfly sad figures.\u00a0 After all, don\u2019t we all eventually find our lives winding down?\u00a0 And even if it is the circle of life, it has a certain tragic aspect.\u00a0 Well, just a bittersweet reflection on the beautiful Indian Summer that we\u2019ve been gifted with this year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last two weeks have been unseasonably warm here in Dunwich.\u00a0 And believe me I\u2019m not complaining.\u00a0 Summer-like days and mild nights is wonderful.\u00a0 Not<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3366,1263],"tags":[4788,456,5026,1023],"class_list":["post-34799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-in-dunwich","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","tag-death","tag-fall","tag-indian-summer","tag-insects"],"yoast_head":"\nCruel Aesop - Orion's Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/05\/cruel-aesop\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cruel Aesop - Orion's Cold Fire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The last two weeks have been unseasonably warm here in Dunwich.\u00a0 And believe me I\u2019m not complaining.\u00a0 Summer-like days and mild nights is wonderful.\u00a0 Not\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/05\/cruel-aesop\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Orion's Cold Fire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-10-05T09:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-10-05T00:22:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/DSC09158.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"photog\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@orionscoldfire\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@orionscoldfire\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"photog\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/05\/cruel-aesop\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/05\/cruel-aesop\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"photog\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/person\/d11e80f83f3825ce9fe38a5303eb64d3\"},\"headline\":\"Cruel Aesop\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-10-05T09:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-10-05T00:22:09+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/05\/cruel-aesop\/\"},\"wordCount\":613,\"commentCount\":6,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"death\",\"Fall\",\"Indian Summer\",\"Insects\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Life in Dunwich\",\"photog's Corner\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/05\/cruel-aesop\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/05\/cruel-aesop\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/05\/cruel-aesop\/\",\"name\":\"Cruel Aesop - Orion's Cold Fire\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2025-10-05T09:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-10-05T00:22:09+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/05\/cruel-aesop\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/05\/cruel-aesop\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/05\/cruel-aesop\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Cruel Aesop\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/\",\"name\":\"Orion's Cold Fire\",\"description\":\"All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Orion's Cold Fire\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/DSC06141.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/DSC06141.jpg\",\"width\":4022,\"height\":1419,\"caption\":\"Orion's Cold Fire\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/orionscoldfire\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/person\/d11e80f83f3825ce9fe38a5303eb64d3\",\"name\":\"photog\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/photog-image.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/photog-image.jpg\",\"caption\":\"photog\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/author\/photog\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Cruel Aesop - Orion's Cold Fire","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/05\/cruel-aesop\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Cruel Aesop - Orion's Cold Fire","og_description":"The last two weeks have been unseasonably warm here in Dunwich.\u00a0 And believe me I\u2019m not complaining.\u00a0 Summer-like days and mild nights is wonderful.\u00a0 Not","og_url":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/05\/cruel-aesop\/","og_site_name":"Orion's Cold Fire","article_published_time":"2025-10-05T09:00:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-10-05T00:22:09+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/DSC09158.jpg"}],"author":"photog","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@orionscoldfire","twitter_site":"@orionscoldfire","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"photog","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/05\/cruel-aesop\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/05\/cruel-aesop\/"},"author":{"name":"photog","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/person\/d11e80f83f3825ce9fe38a5303eb64d3"},"headline":"Cruel Aesop","datePublished":"2025-10-05T09:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2025-10-05T00:22:09+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/05\/cruel-aesop\/"},"wordCount":613,"commentCount":6,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#organization"},"keywords":["death","Fall","Indian Summer","Insects"],"articleSection":["Life in Dunwich","photog's Corner"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/05\/cruel-aesop\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/05\/cruel-aesop\/","url":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/05\/cruel-aesop\/","name":"Cruel Aesop - Orion's Cold Fire","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#website"},"datePublished":"2025-10-05T09:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2025-10-05T00:22:09+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/05\/cruel-aesop\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/05\/cruel-aesop\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/05\/cruel-aesop\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Cruel Aesop"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/","name":"Orion's Cold Fire","description":"All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#organization","name":"Orion's Cold Fire","url":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/DSC06141.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/DSC06141.jpg","width":4022,"height":1419,"caption":"Orion's Cold Fire"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/orionscoldfire"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/person\/d11e80f83f3825ce9fe38a5303eb64d3","name":"photog","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/photog-image.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/photog-image.jpg","caption":"photog"},"url":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/author\/photog\/"}]}},"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34799"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34801,"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34799\/revisions\/34801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}