summer slips away

Tomorrow is the last full day of summer but autumn has been whispering over the landscape for a while now and every living thing around me has been listening.
 

The liquid feeder has been busy all summer but the past few days it's been emptying very quickly. I refilled it Monday morning. Within moments it was rarely unoccupied throughout the day. That was to be the last I'd see of the hummers this season. Safe flight wee ones. Thank you for your company.

Dovey has been beside herself watching the frenetic activities of a chubby red squirrel just beyond her windows. I've found the hulls of chestnut in every corner of the garden and though the ground beneath the tree is littered with hulls, almost every one is empty. I had to search to find these.

Arranged thus they remind me of chocolates and a cream puff. My sister actually brought some home last autumn and her Italian husband tried roasting them. Foul smelling and bitter. But the squirrel thinks they're just the thing. I imagine there will be many chestnut seedlings in strange places come spring.
The road outside our picket fence runs roughly east and west and we use it to measure just how far the sun's course shifts through the seasons. Recently I took this photo of the sun setting,  just to the north of our street.

This evening I took this second one. I didn't use as much zoom, but you can still identify the silo to the right of the road. Tonight's sun was also a bit obscured by the clouds,  but it left a lovely glowing trail on the pavement. Saturday is the equinox and after that Earth's sun will stay south of our road for 6 months.  Shorter days, longer nights. Our first frost is expected Saturday night, and though we're expected to have days in the 70s after that, somehow the first frost changes everything.
I'll be gathering tomatoes tomorrow, as many as I can find before that frost. I expect that squirrel will be busy gathering as well.