When my granddaughter Stasia came out of one of the dollar stores recently, she was aghast at what she'd seen. "Halloween stuff... already?" she intoned, half-incredulous, half-shocked. Had she looked in the field nearby, she wouldn't have been so surprised. On many of the dried Orchard Grass and Timothy tops are scads of Halloween-colored dragonflies that hang gamely on and flutter in the breezes like Buddhist prayer flags. This behavior gives the Skimmer genus Celithemis its "pennant" name, and the rich orange and amber hues, developed to perfection in the species eponina, give the odonates their Halloween designation. Of course, their timing is a little off: it's just about midsummer, and these Halloween Pennants will be long gone by the 31st of October. Still, they're a sure sign of the passage of time, if not the passage of the season... regardless of what Stasia found in the bargain emporium.