summer

Summer’s Flight

~ shoreacres ~ 57 Comments
One last fling for a sunflower

Colored leaves drifting from maples, oaks, and sycamores may evoke the coming of autumn, but flowers also have an end; falling petals and withering leaves betoken changes to come. 

Given the amount of spider silk wrapped around this sunflower (Helianthus annuus), I assumed its apparently airborne rays still were attached to the plant. They may have been dragging a bit of silk behind them, but when I discovered them missing in the following frames, I realized the truth. However inadvertently, I’d captured a perfect illustration for Emily Dickinson’s gentle farewell to the season: a sunflower’s beautiful ‘light escape.’ 

As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away —
Too imperceptible at last
To seem like Perfidy —
A Quietness distilled
As Twilight long begun,
Or Nature spending with herself
Sequestered Afternoon —
The Dusk drew earlier in —
The Morning foreign shone —
A courteous, yet harrowing Grace,
As Guest, that would be gone —
And thus, without a Wing
Or service of a Keel
Our Summer made her light escape
Into the Beautiful.
                                               Emily Dickinson

Comments always are welcome.

Steering Toward Summer

~ shoreacres ~ 52 Comments

On May 1, a small clump of Coreopsis blooming at the edge of a Brazoria County ditch brought an immediate smile. The combination of flower and buds looked remarkably like a ship’s binnacle, with its compass in the middle and correcting balls at either side.

Binnacle on the 1885 cargo ship Wavertree ~ South Street Seaport Museum

Local distortions of the earth’s magnetic field can make a compass inaccurate for navigational use, but some of the distortions, particularly those caused by the ship itself, remain fairly constant. Those errors are corrected by using small adjuster magnets, iron rods, or compensating balls incorporated into the binnacle, like those shown above. While the devices themselves also distort the local magnetic field around the compass, they’re arranged in a way that corrects compass headings.

The process of correcting a compass using various devices, called ‘swinging the compass,’ is complex. Even after adjustments are made, residual errors exist. So-called ‘deviation cards’ record known compass errors for all headings of the ship, and help to make accurate navigation possible.

Given our current conditions, I’d say this Coreopsis compass was perfectly adjusted; we’re making way, and the shore of summer is in sight.

 

Comments always are welcome.

Barefootin’ Into Summer

~ shoreacres ~ 58 Comments

This Aardman Animation of Robert Parker’s classic song
is filled with delightful visual puns ~ can you find them?

Dry sand, asphalt, concrete, and teak decks are baking in our current August-like temperatures, making one of summer’s greatest pleasures — barefootin’ — a sometimes painful proposition.

But at the water’s edge, barefootin’ birds have taken Robert Parker’s soulful advice; they may not have shoes to kick off, but they’re on their feet, dancing into summer despite the heat. Scroll through the photos while listening to the song, and tell me they’re not!

Kildeer (Charadrius vociferus)
Little Blue Heron (Egretta caerulea)
Black-bellied Whistling Ducks (Dendrocygna autumnalis)
Black-necked Stilt (Himantopus mexicanus)
White Ibis (Eudocimus albus)
Laughing Gull (Leucophaeus atricilla)

 

Comments always are welcome.

Waiting for ‘Fall Day’

~ shoreacres ~ 58 Comments
  Brazoria Wildlife Refuge ~ September 19

Eric Berger and Matt Lanza, two of Houston’s most trusted meteorologists, maintain a website called Space City Weather. Yesterday, Eric wrote:

A few years ago Dan Reilly, the warning coordination meteorologist at the local National Weather Service, and I were discussing fall cool fronts. We agreed the first day it truly felt like fall in Houston should be a holiday.
Every year since, Space City Weather has designated the first day it will truly feel like ‘fall’ in Houston as Fall Day. This year, that day comes on Wednesday, September 22, after a front moves through overnight and brings much cooler and drier air to the region. It may not be an official holiday, but it sure should be one after we survive summer.

‘Survival’ seems precisely the right term. As August drags into September, the combined pressures of heat, humidity, and hurricanes weigh ever more heavily. Memories of our extraordinary February freeze began to fade in the rising summer heat, just as the browns and grays of a stunned landscape turned once again to green.

Wolf Lake ~ February 28
Big Slough ~ August 8
Teal Pond ~ June 13

Despite our eagerness for autumn, summer’s greens — along with summer’s heat and humidity — will linger into October. But a freshening breeze from the north will make the waiting more bearable, and the first hints of color will make the summer that remains even sweeter. It’s a happy coincidence that this year’s ‘Fall Day’ will occur on the autumn equinox. We’re ready.

 

Comments always are welcome.

Budding Blue, Blooming Blue

~ shoreacres ~ 49 Comments

more quiet than dawn
faint ripples of lavender
summer’s sweet ending

 

silent explosion
splitting the green-starred darkness
a whiff of blue scent

 

Comments always are welcome.
A Texas native, the blue water lily (Nymphaea elegans) blooms in spring and summer. These were found at the Brazoria Wildlife Refuge on September 5.