Monday forest photo: August 22, 2011

11:30am 18C partly cloudy

It was a beautiful, crisp fall-ish day, today. Yep, high summer is behind us now. That's ok. I like that the house stays cool and we're sleeping under the down comforter again. I have noticed that our nighttime lows are a couple of degrees colder than the official forecast for the area, so I will have one eye on the weather and one on my tomatoes for the rest of the season.

Monday forest photo: August 15, 2011

5:30pm 24C cloudy

It's a quickie today, but summer is definitely waning, even if it is still nice and warm. The days are a little shorter and there are acorns on the ground.

The chicks are almost 7 weeks old and starting to act all grown up.

Monday forest photo: August 8, 2011

10:30am 22C mostly cloudy 

I don't know if it shows in the picture, but there are starting to be some changes in the forest as we get into late summer. Some of the plants have turned brown after our very dry last few weeks and everything is just a little less lush. We did have lots of rain yesterday, but you'd barely know it this morning. 

It was interesting to see bees "bearding" outside the entrance to their hive in the cedar tree. Apparently, this cools the hive by getting some bees outside and their fanning draws warm air out.

Monday forest photo: August 1, 2011

1:15pm 30C scattered clouds

 What a beautiful day for a walk in the woods. It's a statutory holiday here today, so there's no annoying noise from the quarry subdivision next door. The mosquitoes were mostly hiding from the sun and heat, so I walked in blissful peace.

There are quite a few toads that jump out of the way at the last second. You never see them until they move, and I do worry that one day one won't be quick enough. A friend tells a quite horrifying story about an incident where she was cleaning up a little boy with very dirty pants and stepped backwards (hard) onto a toad, in her own bathroom. The bathroom was just inside the back door, which maybe explains the toad, but the resultant mess was the kind that could make a grown woman cry.

The bitternut hickories are dropping some fruit. So far, the ones I've seen have all had a hole in them, so perhaps these are dropping first. I recall seeing them later in the season last year.

The bee tree is still going strong. It's hard to get a picture that shows all the comings and goings of the bees, but it's a great treat to see and hear them in action.