After a few good frosts, the last of the flowers and insects are pretty much gone for the year. Time to reflect on a summer that, here if nowhere else in the world, was remarkably mild and manageable. A few highlights from the garden and environs below.

From top left: Oswego Tea (Monarda didyma); a bumble bee (probably Bombus impatiens) on Joe Pye Weed (Eutrochium purpureum); a rather big hailstone, freshly fallen; a gorgeous unidentified beetle on some goldenrod (Solidago sp); a newly emerged adult Monarch (Danaus plexippus); sunset or distant thermonuclear blast; dead Northern Short-Tailed Shrew (Blarina brevicauda); a bumble bee getting right into a Blue Lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica), note the pollen packets on the bee’s hind legs; an unidentified fungus; another unidentified fungus (I don’t know mushrooms); Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa), with some visitors including hard-to-see ants.

A moth (Lymantria dispar dispar, I think) on the window; Foxtongue Beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis); Wild Black Raspberries (Rubus occidentalis) and their domesticated red relatives (Rubus ideaus); Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata); and a rather huge stick insect, no ID.