The owl cried in the distance as the first light from the sun turned the top of the pine snag red. It was one long hoot, but the end of the crickets evening chorus and the dehumidifier running to finish off three sheets of fig leather made it hard to capture as a recording. The crows, too, were hard to catch on Merlins, but then the Arcadian flycatcher set off and traffic picked up. There was no way Merlins was going to isolate those single haunting calla.

When i came out this morning to just cricket song, Jupiter shimmered in the top of the black cherry tree -- it's loosing its leaves already, as it does. (Which is why i hope it will be OK for solar if they stayed.) [At this point, search and read about black cherry log values.]

The tulip poplars to the west of the orchard have a few yellow leaves. I think the dogwood next to the deck is putting on such a vibrant show this year because we thinned the trees around it, and it gets much more sun. I ponder the tulip polar at the north east corner of the house. It does a good job shading the vegetable garden in the summer. I like that for working in the garden, but that might be why okra and tomatoes started dropping off. This summer, i've grown nothing but the native perennials and the strawberries and some dahlias. The dahlias either haven't bloomed yet (two new heirloom types that i suspect might have good tasting tubers) or have been swallowed up by the native kidney bean (which appears to have also overpowered the sunchokes).

I get a whiff of the overripe figs.

( Digression into rumination )