The year feels fully awake now. The air has changed in that way it always does around late spring, almost without noticing at first. The mornings are warmer, the evenings linger longer, and the sunlight has begun to take on that heavy golden feeling that tells you summer is standing just around the bend.
Roadsides and field edges have become crowded with life. Hedge parsley is tall and flowering, gathering in soft white sprays along ditches and fences. Narrowleaf plantain has been easy to find too, low to the ground and tucked in all the places people usually walk past. Wild prickly lettuce has started reaching upward everywhere, growing taller and taller and claiming corners of fields before I've even realized how much it has spread.
The magnolias, though sparse in my neighborhood, have been hard to ignore. The beauty of their blossoms always stuns me, oversized, plush and bright against all the green. Some mornings the scent catches in the warm air. Catalpa branches hang low over the creek, their giant fuzzy leaves swaying in the wind. The clusters of flowers are heavily perfumed and fragrant, attracting all manner of insects to buzz about them. Curly dock has gone to seed in many places now, standing dry and rust colored among the grass. Evening primroses have begun appearing in scattered patches. Dandelions are still everywhere too, though many have already gone to seed and drifted off into the wind.
The wildlife feels different now too. More movement. More noise. The birds seem busiest in the mornings before the heat, and in the evening when the sun is going down. Insects are returning in force as well. Bees moving slowly through flowers and butterflies beginning to appear more often.
Everything feels fuller this time of year. Less like spring arriving and more like the landscape has finally settled into itself. I always forget how quickly it happens. One day the trees are only beginning to leaf out, and then suddenly the hills are deep green and everything feels alive all at once. Late spring always feels a little like standing at the edge of something. Like the world is taking a long breath before summer fully arrives.