Natural Royalty

We are into autumn. Night temperatures have gone as low as 41 degrees, and there’s heavy dew this morning. Robins and starlings are starting to flock, although I saw blackbirds flocking in August on several occasions. It was a bit disorienting, and I thought maybe it presaged an early autumn or vigorous, shall we say, winter. Maybe they were tuned into the hurricanes so many miles distant. Anyway, it was kind of phenomenal, and I need to look into it.

Monarchs still are around, or they were as of Thursday or Friday. I haven’t ripped their lunch out of the ground yet, nor will I until early November. I like working outside in the fall, even on miserable days. It must be Yankee stubborn or something. On record cold days in the early ‘80s, I made sure I went outside, walking to the Treasure Island (grocery) store, costumed like Cousin Itt. Anyway, Mr. and Mrs. Monarch better skedaddle for their winter digs.

Like all the rest of God’s creatures, the Monarchs are hurting because of development and chemicals. It’s a subject guaranteed to raise my blood pressure. That’s our culture. We demand new construction, turf grass, and chemicals to “sustain” (highly dubious supposition) giant agribusinesses and keep the “weeds”, both human and herbaceous, out. Some day Monarchs will be seen only in books ( if the books haven’t all been burned).

The picture here is from a little pocket guide published in the ‘40s. Years ago – it must have been in the early ‘60s – my parents were out “birding” one fall day, and they reported they’d seen a tree absolutely laden with Monarch butterflies. It was as if each leaf had its own Monarch assigned to it. They couldn’t believe their eyes.

Every once in a while the universe favors people who deserve a special, awesome treat, people tuned into its wonders, but it was harder and harder for my mother in later years to see the destruction of so much of “her” country. She was an environmentalist before the word was coined and supported organizations that worked to preserve Mother Nature’s space. There doesn’t seem much point any more – if there ever was – trying to fight the developers. She protested the building of a grocery store in the 1950s, because the marsh land the store would occupy was home to so many species. The store is long gone. It was an empty hulk for a long time, then taken over by a Goodwill outlet and now, rehabbed, is a government office of some sort. A common pattern, that.