Autumn is approaching. I’ve noticed that by mid- August this year, some of the sugar maples already have hints of color, and the summer flowers and ferns are all dying back.
I am not a summer person. I much prefer the cool days of autumn, with sunny pleasant days, that sometimes even require a sweatshirt, and cool nights that will start to approach the freezing mark by late September. However, the thing I do like: late summer does offer up a a bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables available at all the local farm stands.
I would eat the fresh vegetables and fruit all year round if we had the climate for growing 365 days a year. Well, maybe not, I enjoy the changing of the seasons. But I just picked up some wonderful juicy, sweet peaches from a stand near my house, as well as trying sweet corn from several different farms to see who had the “best”. These items are not something I grow, so I support the local farm stands. Eggplants, green beans, tomatoes, onions, carrots, peaches – all piled high in baskets on the counters of farm stands. Soon the apple picking farms will be open. No more apples picked early and kept cool for months in storage for me!
I’ve been picking tomatoes, fresh kale and swiss chard from my garden patch. I just dug up some new potatoes. These all taste vastly superior to anything purchased at a grocery store.
Another reason I wait for cool weather – the demise of so many summer bugs. We’ve had killer mosquitoes this year – swarms of them since we had such a wet summer. And the weeds grew out of control, reappearing almost as soon as they’d been pulled. Unfortunately this also means my flowers are starting to die off, and soon the yards will be only green and brown.
Another sign of approaching fall – the doe that visits our house each fall has been here – all the flowers and hostas within in reach are now stubs of stalks. She eats them off the end of each year.
This year the approaching fall will remind me of one other – the passing of my mother, who died recently about a month before her 93rd birthday. Her death will be forever linked to the 2 days after my sisters birthday in August. But just as the grasses, flowers, & trees prepare for winter, and their demise at the end of summer, so must we all leave from this world. So we will honor her life and legacies with fondness and smiles in mid-September.
Maybe it’s really just another way for me to celebrate fall.
Male Tiger Swallowtail
“In some cultures, spotting a blue butterfly is thought to bring sudden good luck. Blue butterflies are also considered wish-granters. Spotting a blue butterfly means that a wish one makes or made will come true. A blue colored butterfly is often thought to symbolize joy and happiness.”
How fitting it lighted and stayed on my hummingbird feeder, a favorite bird of my mom’s, that gave her so much joy to watch, as I write this column.