Tag Archives: seasonal-change

Morning dew settled on the grasses, creating tiny prisms of light on every blade, leaf and tightly closed wildflower. The second week of March already, and just nine days to Mabon/Autumn Equinox/Alban Elfed, and this morning was the closest to a frost despite more ominous weather warnings of another heatwave… for us, that means barely 30, but for others it’s a continuum of wildfires and waiting for the autumn rains. A nice drenching now would certainly be a bonus.

The Welcome Stranger swallows are getting ready to leave, filling their bellies with a myriad of bugs that have emerged in the warmer weather… they’re most welcome to any fierce March flies they can catch!

I captured them in conversation, perhaps about which route to take this year… far north of our southern eyrie or wherever they will head for winter. (The Debate… Ink and graphite with water wash on cotton rag.)

There are other wonderful creatures that have arrived though… perhaps because we are a cooler clime and pollen is widely available from both cultivar and wildflowers. Numerous black crickets, a Giant Green Slant Face and a Spotted Brown Butterfly… the latter two of which, don’t belong in our region, but the greenhouse is also full of nasturtium and tomatoes still flowering, tended by the honey bees, wild natives and butterfly, alike.

As I planted I sang to myself, as I’m wont to do. High trilling notes joined my chorus and a tiny scrub wren sat watching me… probably hunting tiny insects disturbed by my digging in mulch and soil, but her rippling song, lifted my spirits high.

Writing my next book has become a very intense and lengthy task, and I’m nowhere near where I want to be, but it’s taking me into more uncharted waters that are harder to share in words… I’ll persist, slowly but surely and in between writing I create some of the art and poetry that will accompany this Journal of Wild Spirits…

Our bees are happy, foraging far and wide and apparently completely heat resistant in the high temps we’ve experienced, until today. Sunflowers are covered with feeding bees and there’s nothing like the taste of raw honey. 🍯

Not so happy in the heatwave was a tiny long-eared bat, who clearly exhausted, excepted water from a soaking cloth before escaping into the open air as the afternoon began to cool. A distress indicator is seeing a bat in broad daylight and usually means hunger, thirst or a need to escape when trapped inside a house.

We’re used to micro bats living with us for most of the year, coming and going under the eaves of the house, then slipping between the walls into the rooms, but this was a little larger, quite friendly for all that it was probably terrified. I imagine it got in but couldn’t slip back out where the tiny micro bats come and go with ease.

All the signs of equinox are here, with hedgerow crabapples, fresh onions and herbs in abundance… tomatoes are still producing and rhubarb is just on the verge of ending… it’s a busy time in both kitchen and garden but the heat has slowed everything down.

After a ten day heatwave, crickets (both outside and in) and frogs are singing in duet, the mist is rolling in bringing much needed moisture and cooling has happened rapidly as we dropped from 27 down to 16 in a heartbeat.

There’s a curious air of something coming… like the stillness before an earthquake occurs somewhere in the world… as a sensitive I pick up on these phenomena and feel as if I’m vibrating right along with the silence as frogs and crickets, birds and the wind become absolutely still… not a breath but the mist creeping across the hot earth.

…and summer ends.

With warm wishes and blessings,

Penny