Seems like I haven’t really gotten around to noticing summer this year, what with all the rain and cold.  Finally we’re getting typical hot muggy days and nights filled with thunderstorms, but it’s only a couple weeks till Labor Day!  Kids around here are getting ready to go back to school; some districts are already back in the classroom!  How can this be?  I look around for evidence that it’s still summer, but I found these things that are convincing me fall is just days away:

Farmers are rolling hay into bales…

…and milkweeds are forming pods.

The goldenrod is blooming everywhere…

and the fields of grass are drying to a toasty brown.

The grocery store looks like a flower market in Italy with all the mums for sale out front….

…and today, as I was driving home from a rural library across the fam land, taking pictures of beautiful clouds…

I noticed off in the distance this flock of sandhill cranes.  I’ve never seen so many, there were almost thirty of them close together in one field.

I guess they’re getting ready for a flight to warmer digs.

I will be sad to see them go.