Does summer pour over you like warm maple syrup? No? It does me. Time seems to slow down from May through July, before sliding down the slippery slope toward fall. This summer picked up speed a little earlier, in July, with family commitments, visitors from Germany, and some of the rainiest coolest weather on record for Pennsylvania. I simply ‘woke up’ and it was August. Before it all slips away, here’s a small, PAgeo photo-documentary of what makes Pennsylvania summers so unforgettable.
When I think back to the best summers I had they were on ‘the mountaintop’ in Centre County PA, which could be anywhere because the entire county is mountains and valleys ad infinitum. It was the mid-70’s and we rode our bikes through the woods, along the country road (berms), and all over the neighborhood until dark when we were expected to report home for bedtime. We were bussed a short distance to the community pool, where we all took swimming lessons and learned to use the diving boards. But the pinnacle was the hikes dad took us on to wear us out. With 6 kids he needed to keep us tired so we wouldn’t be unruly. Although they felt interminable at the time, looking back that’s where my love for the woods began. Thanks Dad!
Fast forward to today and besides our own current backyard and the small park at the end of our driveway, Centre County PA has 113 square miles (72,500 acres) of State Game Lands crisscrossed by trails. Anyplace else might call these parks, but these areas, although managed by the State Game Commission, are not parks. They are instead protected environmental zones, like the “frost pocket” microclimate of the prehistoric Scioto Range barrens which formed between 10,000-18,000 years ago (Src: Centre County Historical Society). These game lands are reserved for people and animals and host to all manner of outdoor activities from hunting and fishing to hiking, to photography, to geocaching (a real scavenger hunting game) whose players we’ve seen on the trails near us. They are free to use with very view rules and some areas near us allow horses on the trails too. Yes, here in Centre County, horse raising is a rite of passage along with 4H.
Side bar - Our county is also home to the last remaining tenting/encampment fair in the United States not too far from us.
It’s no wonder I have special recharging gear for my iPhone, because with so many unique wilderness areas, I’m forever slowing us down for the perfect shot, treating each hike as a meditative treasure hunt. It payed off as this year we saw many firsts. I hope you enjoy this stroll through my central PA summer sleep walk.
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Bren’s Buzz | Cori Bren | Substack
Nature - It’s worth the time.
Let’s begin with creatures, big and small.
We have many rabbits, chipmunks, and red squirrels on our property. They come very close to us because our backyard pool area is a natural biome with trees, shrubs, and stone paths. A chipmunk was hopping across a stone border on a planting bed when he stopped to gaze at me finally realizing I was sitting on the swing in his territory. These are the two best of half a dozen shots I captured of his journey. The red squirrel is a baby who raided our ‘cake’ bird feeder, climbing completely inside like a contortionist to lay flat across the top of the cake to feast. I captured the pic through my office window after I scared him down to eat from the ground instead. In late spring to early summer the frogs and toads hatch. They cross the hiking paths and if we’re not looking down most of the time while we walk we’d crush them. Notice the toad is orangey brown, the color of the clay near where he crossed our path. The Daddy Longlegs (Harvestman) pictured is the first either of us ever saw in our lives that was dragging a leaf. Upon looking up the phenomena we discovered they are omnivorous, so it could have been planning to eat it or using it for camouflage. Cloudless Sulfur butterflies are everywhere here in the summer, and this Common Blue damselfly stole the show at the turtle pond we visit.
Continuing with creeping, scurrying, and flying, I was SO pleased to see tons of honeybees and bumblebees despite our potted flowers not attracting them nearly as well as they did last year. All I had to do was look down. They have been all over the clover in our yard. We get all kinds of small moths/millers that sneak in through our sliding doors because they hang out around the porch lights. This was one of many I escort back outside the next morning. And another first for us - we saw this gorgeous red spot-less ladybug, either an Asian lady beetle or Spotless lady beetle. We had never seen one without spots before. In the realm of wasps, our friend here, the four toothed mason wasp, is sometimes mistaken for the bald-faced hornet which is also black and white. The mason is relatively harmless and non-aggressive toward humans. It does though paralyze caterpillars, just like this one did while resting on a towel on the swing on my sister’s porch, when I snapped it’s pic, which it will feed to its babies. (Src: Wikipedia). And when we look at birds in our yard, we always have robins and hummingbirds, but I’d not previously seen a hummingbird all puffed up as this one was outside my office window, likely flustered by all the wild birds on the feeder next to it’s nectar. And, this robin we named King because he has been an absolute tyrant in our backyard this year. We had never seen such a territorial robin in our lives. He’s a chonk and he’s large and in charge! Add to this section the Golden Slender Spreadwing damselfly and a Twelve-Spotted Skimmer and it’s a wonderful ensemble.
When it comes to the intricate artistry of nature, the butterflies and hummingbird moth win the day! Not many of the monarchs stop in our yard on their way to the milkweed found in our area. But, both a Monarch and an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly stopped to put on a show for me. The Monarch was on the butterfly bush in a quiet semi-shady corner of our yard, and the Swallowtail was on the flowers in the ditch in the park, which I wrote about last year. And, since seeing one on Substack last year, I’ve dreamt of crossing paths with the hummingbird moth, a truly magnificent site to see. This one is a Snowberry Clearwing who also enjoyed the butterfly bush, simply brilliant!
Summer is not complete without a few surprises. This summer the super-sized steam engine, Big Boy, came through Pennsylvania very close to us on its national tour, so we joined the hordes who gathered along the rural PA rails to get a glimpse. Where we pulled over to watch, a Mennonite family parked near us and mom was selling homemade whoopie pies, of which we bought 2 chocolate with peanut butter filling. I love some American opportunism at something like this. We chatted with people around us until the train arrived and I got an interesting shot of a photographer’s drone next to a paraglider, who was watching overhead, both coming over the top of a freight train passing through. It was worth the 90 minute wait on a warm summer day to get a feel for the scale of this giant engine.
Then something amazing happened from the tragic wildfires in Canada. I got a picture of the sun at mid-morning with a small cloud clipping across the bottom half. The first is the raw pic and the second is cropped to bring forward what my eyes saw behind the camera lens but which didn’t show well in the raw photo. The cropped photo looks like an asteroid barreling toward earth. Also during that time period I got a great shot of the moon, during the evening, with the fire haze as an aura.
Environmentally, Pennsylvania is a state rife with water. I was born and raised in Centre County, but since returning in 2021, I’ve noticed much more rain and humidity. So much so, that the state is now informally considered an intercoastal rain forest. I believe it. Verdant, lush, and green are all words that come to mind when I spend even a short time outdoors. Nature appears to be reclaiming this state, returning it to its humble beginnings beneath shallow tropical marine seas (Src: Research Gate). The otherworldly feeling doesn’t end at the horizon. Sunrises and sets paint masterpieces and the incredible blue skies at dusk and early morning literally ‘hang the moon’. Inside the forest, it’s ponds and vernal pools that make for fascinating landscapes.
Enter the woodland mammals and fowl. We’ve not seen as many ducks, geese, or heron this year because we didn’t get to the woods as much as usual. White-tailed deer are practically the state mascot, so we cross paths with them both in the woods where we hike and in the neighborhoods where we walk.
Lest we forget, the flora are incredible - flowers fungi and foliage, oh my!
Last but not least, we had a hugely successful fungi hunt last weekend in the nearby woods. About this same time 2 years ago I saw a purple mushroom and our online communities were yammering about a fungi bloom, so off we went with high hopes. We were gifted an explosion of purple mushrooms, so many in fact that it got a bit boring, unlike two years ago when I only saw one! Humans, amiright? Never satisfied.
I’ll leave you with an amazing series of fireworks, set off by a neighbor so all I did was stand in my driveway and look up. If you click to open the pics, there will be an arrow on the right. Clicking fast on that arrow will ‘animate’ this firework, my favorite because it appears like a flower blooming in time lapse.
As life rolls into Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, I’m reminded that one of the reasons we reminisce is a yearning for slower, softer, kinder times. It helps to slow down now. It helps to be gracious with yourself and others now. It helps to remember that kindness starts within.
I saw this sign earlier this summer at my local community bank. It says it all.
Take 2 minutes to enjoy Sleep Walk, a 1959 hit from brothers, Santo and Johnny
I hope your summer was amazing. What was your favorite thing about this summer, so far?
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