Yes, it's that time of year when the days are warm, but the nights speak of the winter to come. When the garden veggies rush to ripen. When the homeowner rushes to finish the chores he or she should have done back in June.
The fall warblers are passing through the yard. We have had a few mixed flocks, and last week we found two Mourning Warblers in the weedy edge of the woods behind the garden! Any day with an Oporornis is a good day!
Another sign of fall is the appearance of monarchs and their caterpillars. They laid eggs on our milkweeds, we watched the larvae munch their way to maturity, and now we have found a monarch chrysalis on one of our tomato cages. (There's a picture in the butterfly yardlist.)
The vegetables somehow survived the heat and drought of this summer. Some even thrived, like the green beans, eggplants, and peppers. Karen has assembled a stockpile of green bean recipes that rivals her zucchini recipe collection.
We had a mysterious occurence in the garden, too. On a couple of occasions, a dead mouse would appear in one of the mulched paths in the garden. We thought it strange that mice should choose the same places to kick the bucket. Then one day we found one, and underneath it the ground was heaving. Over the course of about an hour, the mouse carcass was slowly sucked down into the ground and disappeared! Only a little pile of hair remained. Pretty creepy!
We later discovered in a field guide to bugs that there is a subgroup of carrion beetles called burying beetles that feeds on small dead critters like mice, will move the body up to 16 feet, and then excavates beneath the carcass. It pulls the body down into the ground, lays its eggs on it, and the larvae feed on it until their maturity, when they emerge from the ground and start the cycle again. Creepy and amazing!
On that note, I wish you good health and happiness, and may the burying beetles not find you!
Terry 9/7/01