Protectors

Wildfire smoke has turned the air brown and the Sun glares down at us angrily. Today, it’s like viewing the world through a tea-coloured filter.

“What’s left to burn?” we ask.

Unrelenting wind may be enervating, but to me, smoke is more disturbing, polluting the air and carrying a sense of deep foreboding.

At least that is how it affects me. A thunderstorm later may wash it away and drop the oppressive heat. I must be grateful not to be further south where it is much worse.

Strangely, although it got so dark, while I was writing, that I had to turn a light on, there is no actual smell of smoke and the Air Quality Index is only 68 which is “moderate”.

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This is what I mean by “tea-coloured filter”.

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Ten minutes was all I could bear to be outside this morning, not on account of the smoke or heat, but because of swarming insects. They are always annoying, but this year supremely so!

Still, I had to see what was happening in the garden. A solitary coneflower had bloomed, a humble specimen not improved by the nibbling of some bug. Yet the colour and symmetry of the flower asked to be captured.

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These are the in-your-face bugs, I believe.

Up your nose, in your eyes and down your ears. Better keep your mouth closed too!

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In winter, I cannot resist photographing frost and ice. This time of year, I am fascinated by the many lovely shapes of clover, even when the blooms are no longer perfect.

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The complexity of a single flower – extraordinary.

Clover usually attracts bees, but I can’t say I have seen or heard many since the honeysuckle blossom finished.

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The wild carrots continue to thrive, offering sustenance to a variety of insects.

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No wonder they are called Queen Anne’s Lace.

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While I’ve no great fondness for lace, I find these flowers exquisite.

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Through all stages of their development.

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The sunflowers seem to have achieved full height at about 8 feet, with blooms developing.

They grow tall and sturdy to tower over competitors for the light and to support the flower that produces heavy seeds, but what originally made them so strong, so determined?

How did such a vast array of flora develop in similar surrounds?

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Coreopsis (bottom), aka Tickseed, one of few hardy flowers that hangs on in my flowerbed, along with Black-eyed Susans (top), even though I noticed the other day that a couple of stalks had been broken off by some four-footed creature.

The culprit is often a groundhog, but equally it could have been the bear which I saw crashing through the flowerbed yesterday.

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Lily caught sight of it too and spent the next few hours acting spooked which was new. We’ve never seen our confident cat react that way before. Blackie and Little Man got eyes like saucers, while Dee Dee and Willow raised an eyebrow and shrugged. They were safe indoors.

And know that we will always protect them.

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