Shining Light on the Prairie – Summer ‘25

 

It’s not the heat, they say. It’s the humidity.

That’s a tough call when it’s 95°F in the shade and the air’s sopping wet.

For weeks on end, no less.

Not even counting the drought, which multiyear trend continues apace.

How blistering hot air can retain so much moisture for so long without leaking, I don’t know.

Never did much summer landscape work with the Linhof. By & large, that eye found only obscurity in all the green.

This isn't then.

Given the extreme weather, active life tended to lay low this summer.

Often just peeking out from the shade.

By & large, the usual suspects mostly feasted early and late.

That’s the thing about prairie and oak savanna remnants.

The landscape abides through the abundance of life it hosts. That’s how it’s made and perennially remade.

Near summer’s end came intermittent deluges.

In short dramatic bursts over a couple weeks, the air finally wrung itself out.

With that, whole scads of babies followed.

Including this American Dagger moth caterpillar bustling around a tree. Fully two inches long and utterly unperturbed by me.

Whose fuzzy beauty is @ least mildly toxic to the touch. Irritating as all hell, some say.

Which I suppose explains the haughty yellow Hey look at me coat.

Then the first taste of autumn swept in from the north, bringing welcome relief.

Not a moment too soon, I say.

Because now we're all out poking around.

Even as autumn’s first cutting edge is already come to eat.