Colorful leaves, smells, cool breezes and a harvest moon. Autumn must be here!
Spring is beautiful, and summer is perfect for vacations, but autumn brings a longing to get away from the unreal things of life, out into the forest at night with a campfire and the rustling leaves. — Margaret Elizabeth Sangster
Autumn is commonly called “Fall,” maybe because this time of year involves a lot of falling leaves. When day and night are of equal length, we experience the autumnal equinox, which is usually Sept. 23 or thereabouts and provides a mixture of summer and autumn.
Since our calendar year begins and also ends in winter, and autumn precedes it, that leaves spring and summer sandwiched in between, the good part, like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
We see the seasons particularly in plants. As spring brings forth new life with budding leaves on trees and flowers budding, summer brings long hours of sun for growth. Thus, we find that autumn is the time of ripened fruits and especially leaves and, as their service is over, they dry colorfully and fall to the ground.
Just after the death of the flowers, and before they are buried in snow, there comes a festival season, when Nature is all aglow. — author unknown
September gives way to October
Even though our colors of autumn don’t really show that much until the latter part of October and into mid November, that doesn’t keep them from falling. The two sweet gum trees in our backyard start dropping leaves with the least bit of breeze before the calendar even dictates ‘autumn begins.’ They’re also helped by squirrels scurrying around on the limbs in search of green gumballs to gnaw on.
September is usually one of our warmest months in the Lowcountry, but nights seem a bit cooler, with a touch of golden haze. It makes later autumn days so beautiful.
The morrow was a bright September morn; the earth was beautiful as if newborn. There was that nameless splendor everywhere, that wild exhilaration in the air. — Longfellow
Leaves and their usefulness
When leaves really start showering down in November, a few rakings’ worth will be set aside in an enclosed area near our outdoor shack to spread over our potted yard plants. We place them near the structure and cover them with leaves to winterize them from the coldest temperatures, but it still allows rain to seep through. After we’ve enjoyed their shades of yellow and gold, and they’ve fallen, the leaves then give their service as mulch and shelter to the yard plants.
Most people look upon leaves merely as the brilliant costume of the trees without realizing their immense importance to human and plant life. These golden-colored leaves we see now were, earlier in the year, the mouth, the lungs, the stomach, the pores, and the “eyes” of the plant. Without them, the tree could not live and grow.
Normally, the leaf is filled with chlorophyll, the green stuff which makes food out of air. But when seasons change and a tree life slows down, the leaves contain less chlorophyll, so other pigments within the leaf get to show their colors. The leaves of deciduous trees deck themselves in gorgeous crimsons, purples, browns and golds, preparing for the baring of branches.
As long as autumn lasts, I should not have hands, canvas and colors enough to paint the beautiful things I see. — Vincent Van Gogh
Autumn nostalgia
In mid October, leaves in North Carolina are at their peak, and we always have tried to trek to the Highlands/Cashiers area, booking a few nights at a cabin with all the comforts of home, which definitely meant a kitchen!
Some apple orchards are still open for picking, and fields of fall garden greens, especially cabbage, are easy to spot for a hearty purchase to take home. A great way to relax, breathe in crisp cool air at night and take in the beauty of waterfalls, along with the splendor of every color imaginable gracing the treetops. Days like this have inspired many poets to sing the praises of October and Indian summer, and by rights rings true. It’s a very poetic season.
Harvest moon and Indian summer
The Harvest moon occurring nearest the autumnal equinox of the sun, with the moon rising about the same time for several nights with incredible brightness, grants farmers the chance to gather crops as night falls. Thus, its name — Harvest moon.
In the fall, after the leaves have dropped and cold fall winds with cloudy days give way to a period of dry weather and hazy days, this short period is referred to as “the smokey time” or “Indian summer.” These periods usually occur in October and November, but at times in early December. The haze that fills the air is simply dust particles not blown away by the wind that float near the earth’s surface.
The warm, late days of Indian summer come in, dreamy and calm and still, with just frost enough to crisp the ground of a morning, but with warm trances of benignant, sunny hours at noon. — Harriet Beecher Stowe
Field flowers of autumn
From mid to late October, roadsides and fields are aglow with a favorite flower of mine: the goldenrod, with its graceful clusters of bright yellow to deep golden blooms swaying in the breeze on slender stems, like wands. These poor, delicate flowers of fall have always caught the wrath from folks suffering from hay fever and other allergies, but rightly, the guilty culprit is ragweed, with its light pollen carried by the wind.
Pollen from the goldenrod blooms is too moist and sticky to float freely in the air. Surely I must gather a bouquet of these beauties and enjoy them during their short blooming period in autumn. But right now, a little breeze has blown a few more leaves down, and a rake beckons to my hands.