Summer's End

Wow...here it is already...the last full day of this Summer.
I walked down our gravel road towards the setting sun late yesterday afternoon and found myself in a sea of airborne plankton...winged motes of life, swimming, floating, wind-driven...lending dimensionality to the invisible. Threads of cast spider webs, yards long, caught the light twisting and turning, spinning in the currents. All constant motion, lit from behind by the gold of the sun.
Earlier in the day a Monarch butterfly hatched out of its chrysalis in the hen house. I missed its departure, but didnt see it in the hen house, so I'm thinking that it got out and into the world to start its journey South. I'm reading Four Wings and a Prayer, by Sue Halpern, about one woman's experience with Monarchs, and now I would like to tag some butterflies next Summer....hopefully in our yard. tiny little stickers you adhere to a hind wing...amazing. I've seen more Monarchs than ever before this year, which is odd....Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy reported a very low year for that species. I see them EVERYWHERE...not in big numbers, but everywhere I go...even parking lots and highways. Maybe I'm just suddenly attuned to seeing them, like when someone you know gets a new car, and suddenly you notice just how many of that kind are on the road !