LETTER FROM BOBOLINK FARM
JULY
By Barbara Tatham Johnson
Beginnings and endings, the subtle changes of the season, compose the
counterpoint of July’s natural symphony.
The bobolinks, so full of song in June, become silent. I see an occasional
male rise from his field nest where youngsters are ready to fledge and perch
atop a beanpole to sing a few forlorn bars of rippling notes of
encouragement. On the other hand, the wood thrush, veery, and hermit thrush,
with nesting completed, sing occasionally in the twilight and first daylight
hours, hanging lovely trills and high spiraling notes on the still air.
The succession of wild flowers proceeds. Bluets and buttercups continue to
bloom in and around the meadow but are hidden by the grasses grown chest
high. Black-eyed Susans, Queen Anne’s lace, and purple vetch flower
abundantly across the meadow. The first goldenrod and other autumn
composites begin to bud and bloom.
July is the month of skimmers, skippers, and wood nymphs. The
fritillaries are abroad. Most years, the Japanese beetles emerge with
voracious appetites to chew and procreate their way across all that is green
and growing. I feel guilty that I discouraged the starlings’ nesting in May
and so eliminated appetites that could gobble beetle grubs in my lawn and
field. By month’s end, little crickets are jumping away from my footfall
along the meadow path. Their high scraping song replaces the frog chorus
at the month’s beginning.
Raspberries ripen in July. Many years, I pick from the wild brambles that
edge the meadow, although the patch of cultivated berries in the corner of
the garden is full of berries. Wild berry picking, which is slow and
challenging, is more satisfying. Access to the inner sanctum of the cane
thicket is difficult, and footing on the steep embankment to the stream
bottom is treacherous. I feel a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction in
the demands of wild berry picking.
The clusters of glistening juice-filled globules that form a ripe raspberry
barely cover the bottom of the cardboard quart container at first. I remind
myself that a berry picker of any merit is not put off by a slow start.
Satisfaction builds upon that first thin layer of berries and grows as the
container fills. Other bramble areas around the edge of the meadow hold more
berries, and soon I have entered the mind-set of berry picking where the
possibility of finding plentiful berries in the next cane tangle stirs a
kind of quiet excitement and builds hopes that a good harvest is at hand.
Each new picking spot seems to have more berries, and they are just at the
peak of ripeness, not dead ripe so that they fall away when my fingers probe
the cane tips or brush against a leaf that hides a pendant fruit, but firmly
yielding. I use a pinch and pluck motion to take the fruit from its post,
and the pinch must be light enough to not rupture the juicy globes of the
berry. In relaxed maturity, the berries slide easily into the five-lobed
pincers that my upturned fingers and thumb form. I coax the fruit with a
quick, easy pull into the collecting cup and pick contentedly. I am more
successful squatting to look upward through the growth of brambles toward
the top of the plants. Squatting is hard for any length of time, and I must
stretch my legs before I wade deeper into a prickly thicket. The patterns of
leaf shadow and sun make it a challenge to judge just where the berry I aim
to pick is hanging, and I am always aware that I must watch out for stems
and branches that might poke me in the eye.
Each lift of a branch exposes hanging “rubies” glowing in the sun. Sometimes
I discover a solitary jewel far beneath and add it to the container with a
satisfaction that seems too great for such a simple harvest. More than once,
when I lose my balance or do not attend how I hold the cup, hard earned
berries spill out. If I am lucky, the berries fall where I can retrieve most
of them, but I try to avoid the need to pick twice.
Weather in July is as unpredictable as in other months of the year with the
added factor of hurricane season. Occasionally, hurricanes happen in July.
Hurricane Bertha brought more than four inches of rain in July 1996,
flooding the meadow and recharging the amphibian and aquatic insect
populations. Most years, torrid humid weather prostrates everything until a
cool air mass
sinks south from Canada to give relief.
In July on Bobolink Farm, the fog and chill can last for days, yet I love
the fog and the mood it brings to the scene. I set off on an early morning
walk with the ground fog rising but not yet cutting off the view of the
waning moon bright in the southwest sky. A song sparrow and a crow add
disembodied voices to the mist.
The yellows in a foggy morning are what I notice most. The beacon yellow of
evening primrose makes me stop to sniff and note that some blossoms have a
slightly sour lemon scent while others produce a delicious smell of lemon
crème filling that I enjoy. A rosy maple moth heightens the color of one
bloom. Stalks of common mullein sport ochre flowers. Goldenrod just coming
to bloom curves into the misty morning with hints of gold-to-be, while the
black-eyed Susans group in bright bunches along the roadside ditch. Most
bright of all on this gray morning are the goldfinch, their cadmium yellow
bodies piercing the fog like shooting stars as they dart about.
A bluebird’s sweet “chur-a-lee” wafts through the quiet. A flock of mourning
doves disrupts my reverie with a whirring snap of wings as my passing
startles them from a recently harrowed field. I notice the wild clematis,
virgin’s bower, is beginning to bloom, the white blossoms barely visible in
the fog.
The perfume of July comes from the common milkweed. The air is redolent with
the heavy almost cloying perfume from the blossoms busy with nectaring
insects. Even mosquitoes hang about the flower clusters on cool mornings,
moving in a sluggish way as if drunk on the rich scent. The essence of my
summer is hot sunny days saturated with the milkweed’s sweet thick
fragrance.
The first hay cut is made. With other fields to mow in early summer, our
neighbor, Roger, waits at our request until the Fourth of July is past so
the bobolinks and meadow larks may fledge safely. I noted once in my
journal: Roger, mowing the field, sees a young Bobolink fly to the cucumber
wire in the garden and get entangled. He stops the tractor, frees the bird
then goes back to mowing.
Mowing attracts scavengers. At dawn we see a fox trotting along the newly
raked hay rows. Here and there he stops to uncover a vole nest or a creature
crushed when the hay was cut. Two families of young crows learn the art of
poking and shoving the cut hay aside to find delicious tidbits.
Late in the month I take a walk after lunch around the meadow. The milkweed
is past peak bloom and is busy with insect activity. Furry spiders, bees,
ladybug beetles, jewel flies, and wasps hustle over blooms and leaves. As I
walk the path, I see an orange and black fritillary butterfly flying low
over the regrowth of clover and grasses. In August, she will begin to lay
single eggs on the undersides of violet leaves. Several wood nymph
butterflies bounce in flight near the wood’s edge where a distant occasional
lilt of hermit thrush song sweetens the afternoon. I watch two pretty
darners through binoculars. A common whitetail female rests atop a goldenrod
plant where I can admire the dark brown spots on her wings and the creamy
angled lines along her fat tan abdomen. A few meadowhawk skimmers brighten
my way with their red color when I spy them flying low over the grasses. The
ragged fringed orchis blooms in the meadow. Swamp candle and common skullcap
are flowering. Plants continue to bloom and the garden reaches the point of
steady harvest. I sense fulfillment and completion in the natural world.
If the weather conditions are clear, I say good-bye to July, spending time
viewing the starry nights. The whine of mosquitoes has given way to the high
scraping of crickets, and I can look at the vastness of the Milky Way
through binoculars with little disturbance, awed by the brilliant display
unique to this time of year.
Life cycles begin and conclude with an ease and speed that unsettle me a
bit. In Maine, July is summer with strong intimations of autumn.
