There are philosophers who say that we only know things in their relationship to other things. It is perhaps like this in our awareness of the seasons.

It was like yesterday, looking out the bedroom window: A rock and a few bare stalks in the winter snow. Now, life has returned. The rock is barely visible in the dense overgrown garden behind a clump of day lilies. These flowering plants, native to Asia, aren’t true lilies. They are prolific perennial bulbous plants whose flowers typically last only a day only to be replaced by new ones: Something like our own short lives.

Also like yesterday, I shoveled a path through the snow from the back door. And now, the Clematis flowers have come and gone and the tomato vine I planted in May is nearly 2 meters tall.

One of spring’s seasonal joys is watching the Clematis start to bud on old vines. Here they are. But now, in mid-summer, only the leaves remain.

Each spring, a pair of Canada Geese and two Mallards arrive at the back of the house. Even though they are different species (goose and duck) they seem to get along together. The Canada Geese mate for life while the Mallards enjoy a brief liaison during mating season.

The forest behind our house is home to white-tail deer. In Spring, it’s common for deer to hide their fawns and leave them alone for long stretches of time while they gain the strength needed to run from predators. One of the instinctual gifts fawns have is the ability to stay quiet during the first three weeks of its life. After about a month, the fawn’s legs are strong enough to support running, and it is now able to keep up with the doe while foraging for food. In this image, an adult deer grazes from the low hanging branches of a maple tree. It has already eaten the flower buds of the Stella D’Oro daylilies in our garden!

In this image of a young buck, it is easy to see why the species is called ‘White-Tailed’.

Skunks and Possums are both nocturnal mammals, so we seldom see them, although the skunk can make its presence known by spraying a foul-smelling liquid as a defense mechanism. The possum, on the other hand, will ‘play dead’ when threatened. In this image, one can see that the possum is a female marsupial by the pouch under its stomach in which it is carrying its young.

We see squirrels foraging for seed below the birdfeeders in winter. Their nests are often constructed of twigs and leaves in the fork of a tree or, in the case of our squirrel, in a hole in the lower trunk of a large maple tree.

Another diptych. These are young grey squirrels venturing out of their nest as the weather warms up.

This triptych illustrates some of the aquatic life in the ponds close to our home.
The European Carp in the center is one of the most common species in lakes around Ohio.
The Midland Painted Turtle on the left is moving towards its primary habitat, the shallows of a quiet pond. The species hibernates in winter, tolerating freezing temperatures for prolonged periods. During hot summers, it will often be seen basking in the sun on a log or on the muddy edge of a pond. The Fowler’s Toad on the right is one of several amphibians in the pond near our house. A female can produce over 10,000 eggs that fertilize externally. The eggs hatch after about a week, giving birth to tiny tadpoles. They have a very high mortality rate with as few as 10 – 12 surviving to become frogs These young creatures go through the process of metamorphosis, changing into baby toads leaving the pond after about sixteen weeks.

As in summers before, the Monarch caterpillar feeds on the Butterfly Bush and, within a few days, it will leave and look for a place to pupate. Hanging under a leaf, it will shed its skin, appearing as a chrysalis. And ten days later, it will amaze us as it does each summer fluttering upwards in spirals and swoops then diving in a haphazard aerial display that makes photographing them almost impossible.

The Slate Colored Junco on the left is a member of the sparrow family. They are sometimes referred to as snowbirds because they appear to carry gray storm clouds on their backs and white snow on their bellies. They also often fly into many areas just in time to usher in winter snows.
On the right, a male Northern Cardinal shares a branch with a female Redwing Blackbird. We marvel at the fact that so many different species of bird come together to visit our feeders.

Summer is now in its full glory, The only sadness is our loss of Lucy, in whose memory we add this post.

Without Lucy, the skunks, chipmunks, squirrels, deer, possums, geese, ducks and even wild turkeys no longer have anything to fear as they wander behind our house.