October Present & Past

Summer is lingering late this year. Sunny and in the mid-80s F. today.

Spent some time on the deck this evening, after dark, listening to the crickets — and the traffic. Looking at Jupiter and a waxing crescent Moon. Marveling at how not-cold or even cool it is. Warm enough, at least during the first few hours after dark, to sit around comfortably in a t-shirt. (One I bought in North Pole, Alaska, featuring the outline of a moose.)

Most the foliage is still green, though the honey locusts along the streets are yellow. But not the one in my back yard. Maybe it’s the carbon monoxide. The grass is still green too. I mowed the back yard just before sunset today. Last time this year, I hope.

Previous Octobers have sometimes been more October-like. Sometimes not. A picture from October 2006.

One thing I don’t do any more: visit places to entertain small children. They have grown, and usually entertain themselves, as it should be.

A May Day in October

Woke to gentle rain this morning. That’s more pleasant on a Saturday morning, but still a good aural experience on a Thursday.

By afternoon, it was partly cloudy and warm, something like a good day in May. I dried off my chair and spent a few minutes on the deck about 3:30, after finishing a particularly intense bit of work.Show your face and bend my mind

Cloudy or not, a parade of planes is always headed for O’Hare.
Show your face and bend my mind

About an hour later, a thunderstorm passed through, but I was already back inside. All in all, a spring day here in the fall.

Mallard Lake Twilight

Heavy rain part of the day, with the promise of a cooling trend later this week. Not down to icy depths, but rather a hint of the months ahead.

Yesterday we walked the dog around Mallard Lake. Last time there was April 2020, which seems like an eon ago. This time, the sun set while we walked the trail.Mallard Lake

Mallard Lake

Lots of goldenrod still.Mallard Lake

Mallard Lake

And Brown-Eyed Susan.Mallard Lake

Bridges to cross.
Mallard Lake

Toward the end of the trail, a pretty western sky. Much prettier than the image below, but that’s the way it is.
Mallard Lake

A good moment to finish the walk. The dog thought so too, though I don’t know that she paid much attention to the aesthetics of the sky.

(Very) Late Summer Debris

Cool nights, but not that cool, and warm days — at least through the weekend, according to forecasts. It’s that time of the year when summer ebbs away anyway.

As for Fairbanks, I don’t know whether dips below freezing count as the leading edge of winter, or merely a chilly fall. Anyway, summer’s done.

The crickets are still chirping by night hereabouts. But I find that if I leave the window open a crack to fall asleep to them, which I like to do, I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night sneezing. Not because of the crickets — I’m pretty sure — but damned lingering ragweed.

That happened more than once last night, despite a decongestant I took at about 2, and despite closing the window after the first time. I woke up tired this morning. I managed to get my morning work done, took a siesta in the early afternoon, and felt better after that, well enough to finish the day’s work. Such are weekdays sometimes.

When visiting Wisconsin recently, we wondered whether the dog would want to go swimming.
Egg HarborShe did not, though a walk on the beach was fine.

Spotted at a shopping center parking lot recently.

The charging station appeared sometime recently, not sure when. Eventually, they might be so common that no one will comment on them, but I don’t think we’ve reached that point yet.

The Washington Post reported on September 14: “Automakers are betting tens of billions of dollars on the expanding adoption of electric vehicles in the U.S. But a big hurdle for some consumers is the much longer time it takes to charge an EV than it does to refuel a gasoline-powered car. Buc-ee’s Inc., a Texas-based chain of gas-station convenience stores that’s expanding rapidly in the Southeast, could have the answer.”

The gist of the story (for those who can’t access it) is that Buc-ee’s will make — has made — itself so interesting that people won’t mind spending extra time there to charge their cars. Could be. Or it might be the next step for Buc-ee’s toward world domination.

Skeptical? The article also says: “The chain’s origins and most of its locations are in Texas, but they’ve recently added two locations each in Georgia, Alabama and Florida, with new locations under construction in South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Mississippi.”

Summer Storm

Yesterday, a quick storm just before dark. Today, the same.

The gathering August 25 storm here in the northwest suburbs, not long before sunset.

The storm breaks.

After about 20 minutes, rain is still falling and the western sky lights up a pastel yellow that my photo hardly conveys.

Ten more minutes, it slacks off, with thunder rumbles continuing and occasional bursts of rain. The bright yellow to the west devolves into gray and then black.

Independence Day & Cicadas

At-home Independence Day weekend this year, unlike last year or the year before. Or rather, a metro-area holiday, since I spend some time on Saturday tooling around the border area between Cook County and Lake County before attending a backyard party in north suburban Wilmette, hosted by an old friend and her husband.

The weather turned conveniently dry (and pretty hot) after July 2, so the air temps were just right for an evening outdoor party, as well as for viewing the fireworks show in west suburban Westmont on Sunday. That morning, I got around to mowing our lawn, front and back, which had been greened up by the considerable late June rains. More rain is expected in a few days, so I’m not done with lawn maintenance for a while.

The weekend also involved a lot of time on the deck reading, or, during one particular few minutes at dusk on Monday, listening to cicadas. I hadn’t noticed them this year until that moment. There seemed to be only one (or maybe a small knot) of the insects in the tree over our deck, singing 20 or 30 cycles before being quiet for a moment.

More distant lone cicadas seemed to be doing the same in other trees. Are these the vanguard of the cicada army that will loudly fill the late afternoons of late summer?
Also, how can something so small be so loud? That’s a question new parents tend to ask themselves as well.

High Summer Debris

High summer is here — I’ve seen fireflies and we can buy Rainier cherries — and holidays are ahead, such as Canada Day, World UFO Day, Independence Day, X-Day, Nunavut Day. Back to posting on July 6.

A fine day to end June, warm and partly cloudy until a massive but short downpour in late afternoon. Dry days ahead, including the July 4 weekend. I’ve been nattering on about the excellence of summer lately, and while I realize a lot of places endure relentless heat during this time of the year, including places I used to live, I’m sticking with my sentiment. I’ve lived here enough winters to appreciate the summers. A Northern summer is much better than this:

Looking at a major news site yesterday, I saw this.

I hope visitors to Alaska or anywhere won’t see such a thing. No bad-taste Florida Man jokes for this, either. I refreshed the page and the picture changed to something fitting the headline.

Our last lunch in Detroit recently was at a Cuban restaurant, Vicente’s. The food was good, but the Cuban lemonade (limeade, really) was wonderful.

The restaurant is on Library Street, across from the Skillman Branch of the Detroit Public Library. On the other side of the library is the enormous Hudson’s Site development. Got a good look at its rising elevator shafts.

Hudson's Site under construction June 2021

The drive home from Detroit was fairly straightforward, but I did take one short detour to Ypsilanti, Michigan. I had to see the (sort of) famed Ypsilanti Water Tower, dating from 1890 and still used as part of the city’s water system.

Ypsilanti Water Tower

Wags call it the Brick Dick. There’s a bust of Demetrius Ypsilanti nearby, along with Greek and U.S. flags, but I didn’t care to cross the busy street for a closer look.

Back Yard Summer Flora ’21

Rain again in the morning. Tomorrow maybe more. Moderate temps in the meantime. I understand that we’ve traded places, weather-wise, with the Pacific Northwest, which is remarkably hot and dry for the moment.

By afternoon it was again dry enough to sit on our deck. I also did a survey of the flowers of the back yard, including those springing from the damp earth.

back yard flowers

back yard flowers

back yard flowers

Those in pots on the deck.
back yard flowers

And along the fence.
back yard flowers

“Summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” — Henry James

Park St. Claire Natural Area

More rain today, alternating with drier periods. The grass has responded, as grass does this time of the year, by greening up and lengthening. As soon as we get a full dry day or so, I will respond as I do, using a machine to shorten the growth to a more acceptable bourgeois appearance.

Not everyone waits. Not half an hour after the enormous rains on Saturday, a fellow on the block was out mowing his soggy grass. Is that good for the lawn? I like to believe it is not.

Sunday was a dryish interlude. About an hour ahead of sunset on Sunday, we spent time at Park St. Claire Natural Area and environs.

Park St. Clair Natural Area
A nice bit of suburban planning. At certain places, merely looking around doesn’t tell you that you’re surrounded by a metro area of 9.4 million people or so.
Park St. Claire Natural Area Park St. Claire Natural Area

Including water features.

Park St. Claire Natural Area Park St. Claire Natural Area

I’ll be sorry to see June go.
Park St. Claire Natural Area

Not that the rest of the summer won’t have the potential to be just as pleasant. But June 30, or maybe the July 4 holiday, is the end of the beginning of the season. All of the days between those two, and a few more, ought be holidays.