Midsummer is a peculiar time for roadside flora. There's still a whiff of honeysuckle, but the multiflora rose, once so pungent, has been reduced to desiccated rose hips and the leaves look raggedy. The cow parsley, once so green and lush, is fried and brown. Dust kicked up from the road onto the verge has clotted onto cobwebs and powdered over the sheen of poison ivy leaves. The wineberries are especially plentiful this year.
If you get a chance, teach a kid how to make a shooter out of a plantain stalk. The Young Relative mastered this on maybe his second try, making me his target (per usual).
On my walk last night I spotted a harbinger of the next season: bittersweet berries, still green and tight. In a few months they'll be a brilliant red, with yellow hulls and brown pliable stems, perfect for fashioning into an autumnal wreath.
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