Corn harvest marks the end of summer along our bayou.

Sure there’s plenty of August remaining and September beyond that, but we consider summer finished.

As corn stalks disappear so too are remnants of vegetable gardens long since overwhelmed by heat and dry ground though okra stubbornly resists.

Corn taken in means school opening is at hand, and football’s fast approaching.

Doves, picking through stover seeking cracked kernels remaining behind the harvesters, will soon be targets of wing shooters ringing the fields.

Teal, beginning to appear in sunrise sweeps across the horizon, will be legal quarry in a flip of the calendar.

There’s still plenty to be done on the back 40 – soybeans, milo and cotton harvests remain.

But corn headed to the silo is the benchmark. Summer’s done.