A solar lamp in our back yard.

I went around the yard taking pictures just ahead of sunset today, around the time of the fall equinox. The solar lamp translates energy from the sun into light, so in a real physical sense, this is sunlight by other means. At least for a while. It peters out after a few hours.

There’s an even deeper connection to stars, if not the sun. The lamp is partly iron. As one nonfiction book I read years ago put it – and I can’t remember where I read this – bits of iron are “shards of ancient suns.”

Another lamp, this one of the insect-theme variety.

The air has already decided that fall is underway, cool but not quite chilly. Still, you know chill isn’t long in coming. With a few more warm days sprinkled in, I hope.

Golden rod, which hangs out with the wrong crowd – pollen-heavy ragweed – and so is blamed for seasonal sneezing and other respiratory upsets afflicting us primates.

Other flowers.

Zinnias, as it happens – hardy September flowers doing well near the fence.