Images of summer

The signs of summer's demise appear all around.  I feel the season slipping away from me.  We have passed lethargically through some of the hottest days on record.  The asters and goldenrods are blooming in fields and along roadsides.  The starlings have begun to gather, while all the other birds have gone into hiding.  Only the cicadas seem evident, trilling in the grasses and trees.

The farmers brought in the first cut of hay in June, and some are now starting the second cut.  Hay bales stand sentinel in the fields, or in shrink-wrapped loaves along fencelines.  In the market, local vegetables brighten the stalls, and the first sweet corn went on sale along the roadsides this week.  The midday sky arches blue overhead, and thunderstorms rumble in the evenings.

I still haven't replaced my camera.  Fortunately, I've been able to borrow one occasionally.  But with or without a photographic record, summer always passes for me in images -- in landscapes and portraits.  I pause often to witness the moments and places, turning for a second look and a lasting memory.  I sit often on the front porch or back step in the evening, playing guitar in the cooling air and cultivating my own image.

Here are few images of this summer and summers past.