Friday Ramble - Creeping Autumn

Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia)

Suddenly, there in the hedgerows on our morning walks are clear signals that seasonal changes are in the air. The persistent strands of Virginia creeper wrapping old wooden fences and stone walls and draping themselves around trees and shrubs were green a few days ago, and this morning many look more like Yuletide (or Christmas) paper, red and green and silvery in the early light. Where the stones and bricks to which they cling get direct sunlight during the day and retain their heat at night, the creepers cling to their greens a little longer, but they too are thinking about changing their colors.

Oak leaves are lightly touched with the splendid rosy bronze tint they wear in late September and early October before falling to earth, and beech leaves are already edged in coppery red and cognac. Leaf by leaf and branch by branch, maple trees in the eastern Ontario highlands are turning red.

One of my forestry references identifies native beeches as being of the species called simply "common beech". To my mind however, there is nothing common about the beeches on our hill with their majestic height, silvery bark, dense foliage and rounded crowns. They are simply magnificent.

Part of me wants to dance about and applaud the cooler temperatures and the burnished, glorious colors coming into their own. Another part of me, as much as I love Samhain (or Halloween) and the harvest season, is dismayed at the prospect of cold weather, long days and short nights, of an early autumn this time around. Fall should not arrive until the end of September at the very earliest, and then it ought to hang about until the end of November.

Please Mama, not yet........ Gift us with several more weeks of sun and warmth and gentle breezes, no ingathering and cold nights for a while longer.