It’s been an exceptionally gorgeous week here, beautiful enough to make you forget the news feed when you step outside. Cool nights and sunny days and butterflies everywhere you turn. The last few flowering plants of the season are popping even as some of the trees begin to lose their leaves and most of the native grasses have dropped their seed. The bushy bluestem, perhaps my favorite of the prairie grasses that grow on our roof, suddenly appeared on Saturday after I had given up on it, helping me learn to associate it with the golden blossoms of October’s tall goldenrod. The snout migration is in full force, and I got a clue as to why those long-nosed flitterers persist in such numbers while the other butterflies dwindle, when I saw one on Sunday afternoon licking tree sap off the windshield of my truck, crazy spiral tongue unfurled against old window glass. Survival of the fittest, indeed.