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Likely the last appearance of twigs until after the Fall, given today’s warmth and down pouring rain.
Lit up by late afternoon sun, I find their appearance appealing, like so many things in Nature that we take for granted or fail to notice.
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As often as I see it, I never grow tired of this sight and I’ve posted similar pictures a number of times.
But they are never quite the same.
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The foreground is shadowed by the hill upon which sits my house, as the hill across the valley lights up.
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As an already sombre sky darkens, it serves to enhance the evening highlights.
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It is a wondrous time of day as I run around taking in the view enjoying the sound of peepers down the hill.
(not my photo)
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Unlike the loud drone of bullfrogs, this is a much gentler tune.
The sound of summer in these parts.
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A recent news item suggested that we should be visited by the 17-year cycle cicadas this year, but we were told the same thing last Spring.
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They will hardly be the worst thing to happen this year, if they come. In SE Asia they were a permanent feature.
At boarding school in Cambodia, one of the girls used to trap such an insect and after lights out, she’d squeeze it to make it sing, to the annoyance of the dorm supervisor which made us laugh.
Not fun for the insect, I’m afraid.
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Insects were one of the adjustments we made, moving from England to Cambodia in 1956. I had really only ever known spiders, which I feared and wasps which my grandmother slayed.
Cockroaches were a bit of a shock and there were a variety of flying, stinging creatures that found me very tasty.
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There were scorpions too, though I only ever saw one once. What gave me the creeps were praying mantises.
It took a while to adjust to seeing lizards on every wall, but they feasted on those pesky insects, so I quickly came to accept them.
The red-spotted, bright blue gecko was much larger and had a loud call.
There was a variety of snakes, venomous and otherwise.
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Apart from the mosquitoes that caused me a great deal of discomfort at first, insects weren’t much of a bother as long as you were cautious. Stepping in a red ant nest was not advised.
But one night in Thailand I went into my room and turning on the light, I heard what I thought was a sudden cloud burst.
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Going to the window, I was puzzled at being unable to see out, but discovered that the “rain shower” was in fact a swarm of flying ants.
The house was made of wood, on stilts and with lots of cracks through which the creatures poured by the hundreds.
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Whereupon they had a frenzy of mating, after which they shed their wings in clouds.
Those ants got into everything, including our hair and clothes. They were not scary, but no-one likes being crawled on.
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Next morning, Tong the gardener was delighted to sweep up the dead ants.
Really delighted, you see, because they represented a culinary delicacy, just like the grubs that Sai See used to dig out of our garden in Cambodia.
Tong often attached a torch to the end of a stick and setting it alight, held it beneath a red ant nest in a mango tree, causing the nest to burst and spilling the ants into his bowl. They too were tasty, apparently!
Tong was lovely and I was fond of him.
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While I often ate street food, none of it was very adventurous. Luckily I was never expected to sample anything “exotic”.
My parents surprisingly developed a taste for bird’s nest soup which even now strikes me as extraordinary, not to mention awful.
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The sinking Sun lit up the red maples just coming into leaf.
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By 7.30, the storm clouds had moved out…
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…more or less.
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The closing of another day.
Scientists seem to agree that we should eat more insects instead of beef. It’s much more environmentally friendly, but also psychologically more difficult for Westerners.
Thank you, Carolyn, for the interesting taste of summer in your fascinating memories of Asia. I love your photos of the changing sky and spectacular clouds. Knowing how you love winter and snow, I hope that changing nature in summer will please you too!
Joanna
I love the sound of the little frogs. We do get frogs in our garden at times, but I never hear them making any noise. I see them at the base of the Oak tree during damp weather. I have no idea where they are going, or where they came from.
Best wishes, Pete.