You begin to notice the small spattering of browning leaves on the pathway to your front door. You notice the fireflies are not quiet as superfluous when the sun sets as they used to be. You notice a change in the backyard birds as some have left, and maybe even notice a lack thereof. You notice that there are more spiderwebs caught in the morning dew than there normally are. Such as the ones photographed here this morning just outside our meadow.
These, among other things are all harbingers of summer’s endless nights coming to a close, and the dawn of autumn.
This fact was hit square between my eyes yesterday when I went to the store and I was accosted by endless arrays of pumpkins and signs in fancy lettering with adages such as “Thankful” and “Blessed”. I guess I can look forward to seeing Santa next month. Oh joy.
Back to the webs. If hummingbirds are nature’s fighter jets, then spiders are natures’ architects. I mean, how do you spin a web seemingly overnight that rivals the beauty and let’s be honest jaw dropping splendor of the Viaduct de Millau bridge in France?
I don’t even particularly care for spiders myself. However, the capacity with which they hold to make these different shaped webs is just astonishing to me. When the morning light is just right, and the dew drips off the silk just right, it is something I would much rather admire in the last few weeks of summer.
I wish I could explain more about the spider and their web. It was this very same thing that brought on a children’s book for the ages. E.B. White noticed a web with glistening dew drops on it one morning. And hence planted the seed for the classic Charlotte’s Web. But for now, I will just admire their architecture and continue to admire the changes that autumn will all too soon bring with it. In the meantime, I’ll cling to the sounds of the ricocheting cicadas in the trees in their cacophonous sound of summer like drops of dew on silk. Summer’s still here. And so are the butterflies, like this red-spotted purple butterfly photographed last week near our front door.
