“No, it’s Fall!” says the stiff flitting of a Loggerhead Shrike I welcome back to hunt our thorny scrub and barbed wire fences of the Cascabel Road; they left here a good six months ago, though I think they likely only get up higher in the Sky Island mountains of all our horizons. “No, it’s Fall!” tells the Solitary Sandpiper that arrives at The Stockpond muddy shore, the last of these birds having been here four months ago for an overnight going north between tropical America and British Columbia or the Yukon.

Coralitos (Rivina humilis) are plumping out the berries that will soon be red and showy in the bosque of The Lane, and they’re still in pretty white and pinkish bloom. Gardeners are reduced to having to buy these plants, in order to enjoy such beauty.