I hadn’t realized the fall migration had begun. I saw a Monarch butterfly land on a milkweed plant that had already flowered, and was thankful because it had been a couple of years since I saw one. Later, I saw a couple of them flying across the road when I drove to town. This weekend, there was one in the pear tree. These insects could represent normal activity of reproduction in advance of the great migration to Mexico. They could also be the first wave of the migration itself. In either case, I’m glad to see them again.

By August 21, there was no doubt. The migration had begun with large flocks of pelicans landing on our lake and feeding for a few days. No doubt these flocks are a combination of year-around residents and transitory birds as the group was too large for just the locals. Likely it was an early wave of the great migration coming next month.

In a society flying apart, with changes in long established systems, nothing is the same as it was. We can deal with variations in nature, yet we must also deal with new realities in the human landscape. Dolly Parton’s death from cancer yesterday, is a bellwether of things to come. She won’t be around any longer to comfort us. We will have to make do. It is so for a thousand things in the 21st Century.

I dreamed of early settlers who came to this township. The land had opened after the Black Hawk War, and Iowa would soon become a state. It was enough to have arable land, a grain and sawmill, and a blacksmith or two. From there settlers could build a life from the land with culture they brought with them. In many ways, it was a hard life. It has also been romanticized.

I am coming to understand that nothing is easy any more. A roof lasts only so long, a car wears out and needs replacing, and the thirty-year old furnace had no available replacement parts. On a fixed income, managing debt to serve all these needs and more can be challenging. I recently told my spouse, we have no discretionary income, we only have bills.

So many human institutions are undergoing change. Churches, hospitals, and schools are closing. The presence of online retailers scrapes away revenues from local businesses. The internet culture is here to stay, and not always good for us. It is hard to understand all the change and what it means.

Growing older means paying attention to the society in which we live, yet it also means living in nature. If we are lucky, we can find inspiration in nature to help lead us through a society that seems at an end. We can also wonder about the dreams of the first settlers.