cellini's Diaryland Diary

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August

I had August all wrong. I'd always thought of it as sort of 'July, Part 2.' But it isn't. It has it's own subtleties that I'd never picked up on before.

First of all, the days are noticeably shorter. That makes the biggest impact. Then there are the crickets. In the past I'd only really noticed crickets starting in September, when the sun gets lower and the light is redder and there are fat, black crickets chirping away and probing for warm places to hole up for the coming cold weather.

The crickets don't chirp much in August but they are suddenly everywhere if you keep an eye out for them.

Geese are starting to fly around again. Not on actual migrations but they are moving and exercising and getting themselves in shape for autumn.

There are only a very few fawns around with white spots now.

Storms are more frequent. Distant thunder heralds most every sunset. The air is pure and somehow even tastes better. Full of ozone. Pollen scrubbed out by the daily rain showers.

It took me 29 years to notice the month of August. How ridiculous is that? I suspect that the only reason why I've even noticed it now is that I took up hunting a few years ago. The practice has made me far more observant than I ever was before.

Ever since I was little I would walk off into the woods alone and just sit there for a while watching what was going on. I would look closely at plants and insects. But it was just curiosity. It wasn't until I was 27 and started hunting that the observations really mattered. A thorn bush moving slightly faster than the wind is blowing, picked up from the corner of my eye. My brain would filter out that sort of thing in the past because it didn't matter. Now I am wired like a hunter-gatherer and the motion of a thorn bush could mean 'food' or 'danger' and my brain stops whatever it was doing and locks on to the movement.

What did it matter what the geese did in August or September or any other month when I did not hunt? Nothing. What did it matter how well the oak trees were doing towards the end of summer and how large an acorn crop would be expected to drop in October? Nothing. All of these things have been happening right under my nose for 29 years and I never noticed until it finally mattered.

I didn't really feel like a part of it all. I was an observer rather than a participant. Which is not the case now. I eat what comes out of the woods and fields, meaning that in a way I *am* those woods and fields. I am invested.

10:43 a.m. - 2007-08-22

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