Warm August Days

Late poppies, encouraged by unusually warm sunny weather, lift their swollen heads to bloom. Sandhill cranes run evening flight training over the cabin. Steller's jays demand nuts at the window then hide them around the yard. Nuthatches honk in the tree tops. Bumblebees tend the fading monkshood flowers. No crows visited us this year. Not a single one. Silvers jumped for three days, then nothing. We're already making plans to leave.