98 years, 3 months, 2 days. Time is marching.
Been sitting on the porch listening and watching
 as the sun lowers behind the horizon.
 Hummingbirds first to retire,
and at dusk robins cluck the benediction for day,
 and the tree frog follows with invocation for night activities
 to start with wonderful sky line colors at that time.

A note from Ruby Nicholson, age 98, 3 months, 2 days, August 29, 2008

EPHEMERIS FOR THE FIRST WEEK OF EARLY FALL
    The Monarch Butterfly Moon becomes completely full at 4:13 a.m. next Monday, the 15th. Rising in the early evening and setting in the morning, the round moon is overhead in the middle of the night.
   The Milky Way moves across the center of the sky at bedtime, the Big Dipper points to Polaris from the northern horizon. Summer's Sagittarius has moved to the far southwest. Capricorn has taken its place due south, followed by lanky Aquarius.
    This is the last week of the year during which normal averages in the northern half of the nation drop only two degrees in seven days. Next week, the rate will increase to three degrees per week.

DAPPLES OF THE MONARCH BUTTERFLY MOON
    In transition from summer to fall, the landscape crosses lines of color, form and history. Some visual anchors are clear: the tall goldenrod, the strong white boneset, the purple New England asters, the chicory, the new beggarticks, the bright yellow perennial helianthus that line the roadsides around Yellow Springs. In the woods, the zigzag goldenrod and white snakeroot complement the small-flowered white and violet asters. Roses, late hostas, virgin’s bower, Jerusalem artichokes and hardy annuals hide the loss of lilies and coneflowers in the garden.
    These last constants of the year are set against the changing fields of grain that surround the village, patchwork yellowing soybeans and drying cornstalks, empty wheat fields. The forest canopy reveals its vulnerability, ashes and box elders browning early, black walnut trees shedding, red maples paling.
    The zeitgebers for this particular time of year appear most clearly under the full Monarch Butterfly Moon, in the dapples of light and half light that easily mix the new and old and lay out the panoply of this place, what is happening and what its meaning might be.  In my notebook, I stand between the patches of white and dark, between my garden and the High-Stafford alley and the fields outside of town.
    Beside me, the ironweed seeds are soft and gray. A few silver olive bushes are starting to turn, wingstem shutting down, monkey flower still full, delicate jumpseeds continuing to jump, Shasta daisy and veronica still flowering, and dusky, achillea, butterfly bush, and Russian sage. Jewelweed shines, stretches to the far wood line.  Joe Pye plants are gray like beards. Cut-over sneezeweed, crown vetch and catchweed have come back again to glitter in the breeze, and large-flowered swamp bidens edge the black pond with light. Across the street, a cluster of autumn crocus has emerged, shadows falling on the lawn.
    In the sun, all these different pieces of the season can be too stark, so linear that they point to winter. But under the moon, everything comes together and makes sense, the stippled coat of a single creature.