August 1

I love August! The garden is flourishing and the community of plants are starting to reach their peak of maturity. There is now a synergy between them that doesn't really happen until the garden starts filling in. The soil is not as dry and the close plantings are helping to shade it during the day. There seems to be a balance between non-beneficial and beneficial insects, for I am not seeing any overpopulation of species.

We have resident birds like the Song Sparrows, Purple House Finches, and Robins that run around the garden throughout the day helping to keep the insect populations down. Goldfinches, Hummingbirds, Barn Swallows, Violet Green Swallows, are regulars in the garden. The Goldfinches were checking out the corn patch looking for aphids.

I don't know if Cedar Wax Wings eat insects, but when they came through this week I noticed that they were particularly attracted to the ripening raspberries! Interestingly, by August the Robins have lost interest in them as well as the strawberries. I decided a month ago to leave one bed of strawberries unnetted so that they could have some to eat. There are big ripe strawberries there now which they are completely ignoring. Fascinating.

We are happy to say that there are a variety of bees in the garden. I've noticed that some are attracted to certain plants and not so much to others. The big fat bumble bee loves the Bee Balm (Monardia), however, I don't see the little tiny bees working on this plant. They prefer others.

More varieties of butterflies are coming through. Little tiny damselflies can be found throughout the garden. Today there were even more dragonflies than I had seen for awhile. There must have been a new hatch. We see mostly blue dragonflies (probably Lake Darners), the spotted Eight or Twelve-spotted Skimmers, and the red Meadowhawks.

I took a break from my work and absorbed the beauty of the garden in its pastoral setting. The surrounding tall drying meadow grass had a sea of dragonflies flying above it in the air. The golden sunlight cast a glow on them and the grass that was really magical. This moment was as wonderful as my most memorable and reminded me again that it is a great gift to be alive.