EARLY OCTOBER THOUGHTS AND IMAGES

Gently fall the yellow honey locust leaves, russet colored white ash leaves descend to the earth from on high, droopy are the blossom spent goldenrod and aster blue or white, exhausted in the summer heat of almost early fall! ~90F.

Oppressive is the newly arrived fall, resigned to summer heat. Quickly on the morrow a front will toss the heat and brisk chill will follow, follow on the retreat of this last of summer heat. Always one must remember wherever one does live nothing more can be asked of the weather than “Give me long-term averages and no questions asked.”


Retreat the summer green, early stress of shorter days and late summer dry, protect against come what may, abort excess to save the rest, early fall is late summer triage. Slow the summer dies, quick the fall advance. Leaf by leaf the story’s told, how the summer dies, but fall does not begin, it’s seen as summer’s end.

Standing beside a stream the water rushes by; following along stream banks, to its source or end, streams seem a journey. Perception changes from one’s attitude, along the banks when sitting at one spot, life is seen as passing by, always changing, yet never has beginning nor even an end, but walk along a bank and as each bend and rill leads to another, life’s a journey once again. Take the time sit and watch and take the time to walk.

From where I sit, a sugar maple changes into fall, mid-September and already one third is a lovely Red, two thirds remain a summer green. Each year this tree is among the first to change and always the pattern is the same. As the tree grows on a very dry embankment to its north, dry stress would seem to favor the north side. The south facing branches seem to be the first, perhaps added stressed by the summer heat? Anyway, the blush of Red begins the tree’s undress of summer greenery.

I always love the many shades of Red in the early fall. Red is the color, the color that is fall, from berries to foliage to fiery sunsets, the glory that is fall.










Fall also seems spider time, everywhere they appear. Especially tiny ones that like to wander and jump about. The arachnid wolves who hunt and stalk, not ensnare. Some how this seems a more honorable way to gain ones nourishment than weaving webs of death.

Soon some quiet night, out of clear black darkness a killing frost will fall, thereby ending all tender summer growth. Sometimes it seems a blessing if early frost is hard, mercifully ending daylight-starved, suffering summer plant life, or worse soft-frost disfigured beauties lingering on and on.

Although fall weather following a killing frost can yield pleasant days, these days are but an interlude, only a false image of summer plenitude. Spring and fall transition times are better than the doldrums summer heat and winter cold present.