The Changing of the Seasons

IT'S HAPPENING. Slowly, but surely summer is giving way to autumn.  Our summer got off to a late start, but it seems like Northwest summers are shifted forward by about a month.  September is always a glorious month and October can be full of wonderfulness as well!

These past few weeks have been filled with perfect summer days that we don’t want to end.  Days spent going to the beach, barbecuing, lazy afternoons in the hammock (if you have sunglasses on, no one will know that you’re sleeping), farmer’s markets, driving the convertible, evening strolls and one of our neighborhood favorites – spreading a blanket in the street (we live in a cul-de-sac) and star gazing.  The warmth continues to radiate up from the street well after sunset which is an added bonus. 

The days seem to be flying by now with lightning speed.  The sunlight shines at a more slanted angle, the temperature difference is dramatic once the sun goes down, the sound of neighborhood sprinklers aren’t as prominent and the air has what my mom calls a ‘fallish smell’.  We feel an urgency to enjoy every last minute of summer – and so does nature.  The bees’ golden pantaloons as they collect nectar with increased speed, the longer periods of  time the hummingbirds spend at the feeder, fattening up as fast as possible for migration. The squirrels seem to be everywhere, scurrying about to build their winter cache. The blackberries and tomatoes are ripening in preparation for harvest. 

Autumn colors are beginning their display.  Sedum plants are beginning to resemble rows of purple broccoli.  Asters are about to burst into a profusion of small daisy-like pinks, blues and purples.  Chrysanthemums are always a fall favorite with many colors to choose from.  They have long symbolized fidelity, optimism, joy and long-life.  With symbols like that, maybe we should all have lots of them growing in are gardens!

DID YOU KNOW that the leaves on the trees turn color as a result of the chlorophyll seeping away?  The smallest dilution of color begins, a little more each hour, each day, until one day we see a lightening of the trees and the leaf palette begins to change.  This is not cued by the shortening days but by the lengthening nights.  Trees can’t absorb water from cold soil as fast as it evaporates from their leaves, so to avoid drying out they drop all their leaves.  But first they absorb the nutrients, in the process sucking out the green, unmasking the reds and oranges that were there all along.  In large cities, where there is an abundance of artificial light, trees become confused and shed their leaves later in the season.  This makes me wonder what artificial city lights do to humans…

Sunflowers are now turning east and bowing toward the sun.  The shaded side of each stem grows faster than the sunny side, which tilts the flower faces to the light.  Nature is pretty amazing.

I think we should embrace the changing of the seasons and try to enjoy each and every moment.  This John Muir quote sums it up pretty well:

This grand show is eternal.  It is always sunrise

somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once;

a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising.

Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and

gloaming, on sea and continents and islands,

each in its turn, as the round earth rolls. 

–John Muir