Our year of odd weather continues thus far into September. While the Autumnal Equinox is still a few days away, we fell hard into fall in early September. Several days of cold rain accompanied by a cold front took us down into the low 40s for almost a week. After that, I think all the trees shook their leaves and said “That’s it! We’re not making any more chlorophyll.” Since then leaves have been turning color at an exponential rate. No gentle easing into a more colorful state. Overnight the air had a snap to it, that snap one associates with the first juicy cold bite into a just-picked apple.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the fall. I love the crisp air, how the sun warms your back even though the air is cool. I love the multi-hued trees and the way the fields change into so many shades of yellow: from the palest straw to the deepest golds and I love how all that gold is occasionally punctuated by the purple of fall asters or the dark red of bare branches.
I love hearing the scratch and scurry of dried leaves being blown down the pavement like the scrabble of little mouse feet in the attic. I love walking in the gutters, scuffling my feet to make the dry leaves dance and rise into swirls before gently floating back down to the curb.
Even the clouds in the fall are different. In my secret little perfect world, I would have some place to lie and watch clouds form and skid across the sky. Something high enough where I could see from horizon to horizon. Several years ago, Jack and I met for lunch where we could sit outside overlooking a golf course. The sky was totally blue, but as we ate we watched cumulus clouds form on the horizon: from small skiffs to towering billows that blew apart and disappeared. It was magic. I didn’t want to go back to work, I just wanted to watch clouds appear and disappear.
Perhaps I should find a new career as a cloud reader. It would be something like reading tea leaves in the bottom of a tea cup, except my cup would be the bowl of the sky. Hmm, if I actually put some thought into this and came up with a system, I could be the next Linda Goodman. She had such a franchise going with all the Sun Sign books. Then there was Llewellyn’s Moon Signs followed by the combination book of Sun and Moon Signs by yet another person. But I digress.
Meanwhile, the gardens are just about done. This spring a neighbor offered us ten tiny starts from her black raspberry bushes. “Sure!” I said. We planted them down the middle of a raised bed. We watered, weeded and hovered. Are they taking? Think they will live? In a few short months these tiny plants have become the monsters of the garden. What were we thinking? Some of the canes are 12 feet long. Who knew? Where the canes touch the ground, (they do and they have) they send out roots, deep and stubborn roots that grow in the path and refuse to be pulled up.
I haven’t mentioned the thorns on these. Unbelievable thorns. Nasty. Okay, the berries were mighty tasty, but I’m thinking I may take the leather gloves and clip these down right into the yard waste can. They are definitely lethal and it gives a whole new level of understanding to Br’er Rabbit and his briar patch. Writing this makes me laugh. As a child reading Uncle Remus stories, I always thought people were saying briar rabbit because he lived in a briar thicket. I had no context for Br’er.
