Daylight hours are noticeably shorter, and nights are growing longer. For the most part, geraniums have given up blooming, and there are fewer cicada songs in the old trees close to home. Pots of chrysanthemums are appearing on thresholds, and it won't be long until they are joined by other autumn clobber like cornstalks, gourds and scarecrows. Geese fly to and fro between farm fields and the river, calling as they pass overhead at dawn and dusk.
We have had a fair bit of rain in recent days, and on morning walks, there is often a fine veil of drifting fog. There are puddles are everywhere. Leaves, pine cones and maple keys are strewn like confetti along our path. Hedgerows are strung with spider webs, every strand beaded with dew and glistening. Squirrels are filling their larders, and there is a steady rain of nuts and drupes from tree branches overhead. As we wander along, Beau and I are pelted from on high by small hard projectiles, and our tender noggins have more than a passing acquaintance with acorns, conkers, crabapples and green walnuts.
When I went out to the deck before dawn this morning, Orion was rising, and the stars of his shoulders, boots, belt and sword twinkled like old friends. Venus danced beyond his right shoulder, and occasionally, a glowing shard from the Perseid meteor showers went streaking across the sky.
Such are the blessings of being a northern dweller. Part of me wants to dance (or lurch) about and celebrate the notion of cooler temperatures and starry skies, the burnished glorious colors about to come into their own. Another part is dismayed by the thought of an early autumn. Fall should not arrive until late September at the very earliest, and then it ought to hang about until the end of November.
Please Mama, let there be many weeks of sun and warmth and gentle breezes, no ingathering and cold nights for quite a while longer.
4 comments:
How nice to think of our lives in relation to the wheel of the year again. I've been concentrating far too much on events of mankind. As well as tiny organisms that cause sickness. It helps to be one of the creatures just riding along on Momma's back, as She turns in her magnificent beautiful cycles.
I was wondering if your fall seemed early. I have felt the change in light here even though we get well into the 80s with all that humidity.
We have noticed the changing angle of the sun too... The signal of the coming Fall, which we gladly welcome. But we're still in the 90's most days,no rain in weeks, and there is the smell of smoke filling the air due to 3 large wild fires burning out of control in the western part of the state due to the dryness and heat. Normally I can smell the "smell" of August, another signal of Fall arriving soon. I smelled it once a week or so ago... but the smell of smoke has drowned it out... sigh...
ALL changing here by the woods.also
seems I put on a light sweater as evenings arrive.
Everything is changing along with
this one as she walks slowly through her 80's
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