Autumn gives a chill before it starts to claw the gifts of Summer back so today I saw the yarrow brown and withering and the thistle gone to silk and seed I'm not sure if this was the effect of the heat or a portent of Winter coming yet the clover thrives always the first to come back after the grass is cut and the chicory mimes its own success having escaped the mower and the heat but into the tangle of green I saw a shadow pass was it perhaps a garter snake or a field mouse quietly feeling their way either way they would prefer that I had not seen them even their ghosts wraiths of a longer night and so Fall exacts her toll with hands as cold as ice only doing her job so the flowers and the trees can rest in expectation of longer days and shorter nights and the promise of better light for some reason the groundhogs stood in attention in the mound in front of their dugout facing away from the street looking at each other's backs o...

After the city mower took its toll along the footpaths and the hedgerows the chicory was the first to come back following close behind of course is the tansy sunny and mimosa like but like every love child born from a slip and not a seed untouched by the plow are yarrow the near cousins of tansy not by germ but in point of proximity leaving the blues and the yellows but still surviving the plow the architecturally perfect creeping bellflower and the homely speedwell here and there bee balm and bergamot but when we leave the riot of fuschia and blue we find still more yellows alive and well sow weed rapeseed and trefoil and there'll be more before we're done for the Summer but that's for another time that give's us the day.