A Midsummer Night (and day)

Strange berries… anyone? (July 31 5:14 p.m.)

So it’s now the day that is dead center in the season, August 6.  The middle of summer.  Another definition places ‘midsummer’ at the peak of the year— the beginning of summer on the calendar. …And the Olympics are probably still kicking off the opening ceremony on NBC.  (Tanzania appeared as late as 3:59 a.m. EDT.)

De-saturated leaves (July 31 5:17 p.m.)

The yellowing and browning of some of the leaves out there has become more pronounced.

(Aug 3 4:15 p.m.)

Acorns have dropped, and wild raspberry plants have appeared.

(Aug 3 4:14 p.m.)

Maybe the wild raspberries have been here all along, and I haven’t noticed.  After all, I didn’t notice The Donald had appeared in Portland, Maine Thursday… ejecting protesters holding up pocket Constitutions. …I certainly noticed something clinging to my leg Friday, brushing through the greens along the pathway during my day’s walk.  Maybe it was a tick, maybe not; either way, I picked it off and soon continued the rest of my 1,700 steps for the day in exercise.  Later on, the mosquitoes were out.

Mushroom. (Aug 3 4:16 p.m.)

I found a mushroom poking up before the porch steps. …Maybe some of the damage to the leaves above is due to fungi?  The yellowing in decline of chlorophyll-a (to give way for chlorophyll-b) doesn’t produce holes in leaves…

(Aug 6 3:40 p.m.)

Bugs make holes, which include those other kind of bugs: viruses.  There are more reasons why tree leaves would become yellow in the summer.

…I’ve never actually had a big interest in botany or trees, due to all of the names and variations, and complex processes of plants in general… Information overload.  But I have been listening to some of BBC’s Planet Earth.  Plants need light, of course, so in one of the segments, on the activity of rain forests, the falling of a dead tree made a rare opportunity for the plants below to ‘compete’ for the new sunlight.  It was projected that the hole would be filled in as little as four years.

Don’t forget the pine cones. (Aug 3 4:15 p.m.)

Maine doesn’t have tropical rain forests.  We’re known for having much lower temperatures and humidity, being the most northern state in the continental U.S.  Now that we’re past the summer highs in the 80s, overnight temperatures have fallen to the 50s.  Talk about cool air… that never seems to make its way into the house.  Maybe the pseudo-fall temperatures are behind the progressed colors after all.

Okay, so the high temps have returned a bit since it’ll be as high as 86°F today, with some chance of thunderstorms around Biddeford.

On a final note, I recently got an email from My Trending Stories saying they admire my content— my writing abilities and “content  on adventure” in this blog.  I’ll wait for you to finish laughing, dear reader.  Not to insult MTS, but… I don’t have adventures.  I don’t even have a driver’s license.  Granted, I’m still able to walk (somewhat) and take photos.

Of course, MTS might be able help in the writing process… But they’re a startup looking for fresh content.  I’ll still be trapped situated in Isolationville, Maine.  (Not to be confused with Margaritaville, where something might actually happen.)  I’ll still be spending too much time hacking my way toward acceptable sentence structure, calling the finished but incomplete work a blog post.  I’ll still have trouble navigating and cooperating on account of missing skills for an adult, not to mention a history of poor discipline… (Years ago, I was an a—hole to someone holding out an olive branch, a person who eventually inspired me to create this blog in the first place.  Sorry again, and thanks, Jon.)  And I suppose, loosely, my incredible ability to lose everybody to the point of having zero life experience will still be driving down content value.

So… all of that out there… what do you think, dear readers?  Lol.

…Well, I’ll leave it there.  Got stuff to do and more to write.  Have a nice midsummer Saturday, folks. 🙂