Yellow Bloom, Yellow Leaf

16 July 2011
10:32 PM

Sunrise at	3:58 AM	in direction	28°	North-northeast
Sunset at	11:53 PM	in direction	331°	North-northwest

Civil Twilight all day

Hinting at August rains and autumn in the Interior

I woke up to dark, wet skies with the clouds hanging in low to the ground.  August rains are in the offing and the days are definitely past their zenith, already.  Today I looked out the bathroom window and noticed a yellow leaf on the Birch tree closest to the house in that direction.  I did a quick survey and sure enough a single leaf had turned yellow on several of the trees.  It's strange that way, how the birch trees signal shifts in light and temperature and what it means to the tree as a whole.  One day the whole tree is green, the next a single solitary leaf, somewhere among many green ones goes yellow.  It's not a sickly yellow, either, like you'd expect from a plant that is not doing well and needs to prune lower leaves in order to grow new ones.  It's simply a leaf on a twig that has committed to letting go.

The flag bearers

On the other hand, the three tomato plants are just getting going.  I am already thinking about how I will bring the plants in for warmth soon.  I have considered locations in the garage where I can pack the base of the pots in paper and hang good solid lights over head.  The other plants on the deck will bloom happily until the first killing frost, but the delicate tomato - that well-loved, but hard to grow plant that we use in absolutely everything - likes its feet warm and steady temperatures. We talked about a green house early in the year, but each year only a few things are finished and other things took priority.

Like me - ever hopeful for the chance to be fruitful

Certainly there will be other warm days, but not as warm as June and solstice.  There is still plenty of sun, but it is lowering in the sky and the rays are shifting to the southern angle.  The tomatoes will not bear fruit without some help.

The birch trees, however, will do just fine without my meddling.