White Rabbits, White Rabbits on the first day of August.

I had every intention of murmuring their name when I first woke up, but I awakened twenty-two minutes late, and so I said, quite clearly, - 'Oh, Shoot!'  I slipped into my short red robe and Caspar met me at the bedroom door, - amazingly the sweet dog had been patient and we were able to make it outside for our first business trip of the day.  The sun lingered just under the horizon and touched the clouds gently with light.

Perhaps the White Rabbits will be as accommodating and all my August wishes will come true.......

With the first day of August comes slightly cooler weather, and the long range forecast is for rain off and on for the next two weeks.  The Valley is smoky from fires near and far,

 - dark blue clouds lit up with flashes of lightning in the late evening did nothing to lessen the wildfire dangers in the province, but sometime during the night if must have rained as the garden was freshly watered and refreshed this morning.

A stroll through the garden as July packed her bags reveals a gentle slide into autumn colours and a farewell to true summertime growth.

The sunflowers who creep in uninvited, but always welcome, are stretching their sunny faces to the sun.

And the barn flowers that were banished this spring from the middle of the garden are 

brightening up the fenceline. 

The white phlox are budding whilst the bee balm bravely sways in her tattered tutu.

These lovely yellow daisies will be with us until frost comes in September or October

and the roses are blooming again

The perennial sweet peas require constant deadheading, - as does the lamb's ear that crops up in unexpected places and provides a honey bar for the bees with it's long splendid spiky blooms.

Each season is preceded by lovely omens of what is to come, and as the grasses seed 

and the autumn sedum and mums hint at the splendour of their beautiful colours

 we seem to prepare ourselves for the slow quiet days of Fall.

"As Summer into Autumn slips

And yet we sooner say

"The Summer" than "the Autumn," lest

We turn the sun away,

And almost count it an Affront

The presence to concede

Of one however lovely, not

The one that we have loved --

So we evade the charge of Years

On one attempting shy

The Circumvention of the Shaft

Of Life's Declivity."

-   Emily Dickinson, As Summer Into Autumn Slips

"Let me enjoy
this late-summer day of my heart
while the leaves are still green
and I won't look so close
as to see that first tint
of pale yellow slowly creep in.
I will cease endless running
and then look to the sky
ask the sun to embrace me
and then hope she won't tell
of tomorrows less long than today.
Let me spend just this time
in the slow-cooling glow
of warm afternoon light
and I'd think
I will still have the strength
for just one more
last fling of my heart."
- John Bohrn, Late August


Up at the top of one of the scarlet maples a small twig turns yellow, tipped with crimson.

The large sunflowers host a bevy of small birds, feasting from a plate of seeds surrounded by fading petals.

In the orchard they are picking delicious sweet plums, the apples begin to colour and somewhere the pears start to ripen.

Twilight comes early, and morning dawns late. This morning I was drawn from my bed just after four o'clock, and was treated to a lovely pre-dawn sight of the thin crescent moon, with Venus, a jewel hanging beneath it.

I love September, but 'let me enjoy this late summer day of my heart, while leaves are still green.......' and the asters and sedum and mums slowly prepare to slide into their brilliant autumn splendour.