On the Wildside

This is the time of the year we begin to see some major changes in weather patterns, foliage, animal behavior and even human behavior. Did you notice how quickly we went from really hot summer days to some down right cool nights and pleasant days? What a difference a few days make.

On my way to school recently I noticed a maple tree that is already changing colors. And this change was already taking place at the end of August. The sun, even now is not as hot, there is a shadow to the afternoons that wasn’t there just a few weeks ago. You can notice the “days are drawing in”.

The air even smells different. Irene and I were out the other day mowing. Irene is my 1949 8N with an attached finish mower. I could smell leaf and brush fires as my neighbors were cleaning up for Fall. As I have written before, smells can evoke such memories. Leaves burning always remind me of the end of the growing season, maple leaves are very sweet and almost tasty in odor. Oak , ash and of course hickory are earthy, woodsy and smell like good barbecue.

Evenings after the sunset is even more revealing of the changes. We have a creek that flows near our place, the low areas by the creek have a mist rise after dark, which in the moonlight looks like another world. It sometimes reminds me of my first time in an airplane, oh so many years ago. The mist looks like clouds on the landscape, as if the whole area has completely changed, another world.

Another thing that you can notice, after a big rain storm, the air is a little crisper than in mid summer. You really can tell that there is a change coming. Soon that crispness will turn to brisk and Fall will be here. After all this is the month of the autumnal equinox, the day of equal hours of daylight and darkness. This occurs around the 21st of September, or a day either side of that date. It is time to begin to dry all those yummy garden herbs, the sage, thyme, mint, basil and anything else you might want to dry for the upcoming colder months. Those fresh homegrown herbs will taste great in a stew or that Thanksgiving turkey, not too many months from now. This is also the time of the year the last of the wild flowers bloom. A type of sunflower grows around our pond. They grow nice and green all season, but in the last days of August and the first few weeks of September, they burst forth in a brilliant solar display. The brightness of the multiple yellow blooms on each plant almost mocks the sun. At least three sides of the pond are covered with this golden explosion. And almost as quickly as they bloomed, they are gone, scattering their seeds and sunshine for the next year to see.

Speaking of gone we recently lost a great teacher, Jack Horkheimer, the host of the PBS program Star Gazers, who died August 20, he was 72. At the conclusion of his five minute programs about the stars or the sky, he would sign-off with ‘keep looking up’. Thanks Jack, for the last 30+ years of star gazing. Let’s keep looking up. We can learn so much from observing nature, watching the plants and animals, looking at the phases of the moon as it waxes and wanes, noticing stars and clouds and all of nature expressing the need for us to slow down and look. We need to slow down and enjoy it all, even the heat of summer, because we go through life so fast, then we wonder where all the years went. Enjoy them as you live them. Each day is a gift, remember, the present.