Yesterday was a fat tire day, too much wind for an enjoyable road ride. It was fantastic changing back and forth between gravel and grass. But regardless of what was under the rubber, the real scenery was the flying objects that accompanied me on both sides of the trail.
As I've been aware for the past several days, August is the month not only for cicadas, our musical drones, but for dragonflies, our prairie biplane flying drones. There are squadrons of them everywhere, buzzing the corn, skimming over the prairie grass, in the trees and bushes in our yard, and all of them totally silent. I'm not an expert, in fact, I can't name any of the varieties, but I love to watch them bob up and down on the air currents and flash their iridescence in the sunlight. Yesterday's specimens all had green bodies.
In a motorized vehicle, you can't really appreciate birds or flying insects because even if you see them, you're probably complicit in ending their lives or at best, giving them a hell of a scare. But on a bike, you actually move at about their speed, so at times, it seems as though you're actually part of a formation with them. I swear that a couple of monarchs decided to accompany me for a few yards (not sure they can make decisions, but whatever).
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