It’s time for the purple martins to bid their fall farewell.

Normally you don’t think of insects in connection with Eros. I mean, we humans by and large associate love with beauty. And what could be uglier than bugs?

The summer solstice is on June 21 this year. It’s the day when the sun reaches its highest point at midday and that has the longest interval of daylight.

The growing season resembles a long-distance run more than the sprint of spring would suggest.

The daytime temperature has been in the vicinity of 35 to 45 degrees with biting wind. A foot of snow fell out of the sky a couple of weeks ago.

The small birds that bop around our feeder a lot, and are not chickadees, are the nuthatches.

In our woods, the easiest birds to identify that aren’t crows or blue jays are the chickadees.