Summer’s End

Summer’s end Is like losing a friend, Dying, dying… And, yes, we are at summer’s end though today feels like a midsummer’s day-and a week ago was like mid-winter. Fall is such a bittersweet time, so beautiful and yet so fleeting. There is a special clarity to September air, a special brightness to the low-angled sun, and a blue in the sky which belongs to September alone. The smell of September is intoxicating, a combination of ripeness and the beginning of decay that somehow combine into a rare perfume. But the ever-shortening days and cooling nights are sending us a message-get ready; this won’t last. It is the lull before the storms of winter. Like the squirrels, we are spurred into frantic efforts to prepare the cache of food for winter. We hurry to harvest and store up from garden and field so that both humans and animals will fare well through the cold time. My garden was reasonably good this year-though the beets failed miserably-and my apple tree gave me nearly 300 apples to prepare and freeze for winter pies. From time to time I have a serious garden failure which is a disappointment. However, at those times my mind goes back to pioneer days. What must it have been like to be totally depending on that harvest to fend off starvation? How lucky we really are! So, I will absorb every beautiful September moment and store them up like the garden harvest to bring out and nibble on in dark December!