Autumn is in the waiting room

 Another sign that Summer is transitioning into Autumn: this week our Summer Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] share ends. The Better Half has been exceptionally creative in finding ways to hide veggies so that I'll eat them. In fact, she recently baked a loaf of zucchinni bread that I actually enjoyed (although her banana bread is better). I admit that I much prefer the idea of helping to support a local, sustainable food system more than the reality of eating all my vegetables every day. That's probably true of many things in my life: the idea is more enjoyable than the reality. (Why is life like politics?) Unlike reality, ideas rarely have to be cleaned up after or put away, although, some of the ideas I've had, or come across, seemed to shed as much as my cross breed rescue yellow lab, whom I've yet to train to run a vacuum.

Autumn leaves arrive

Photo by J. Harrington

Since many of our Minnesota Winters seem to go on for thirteen or fifteen or more years, I can understand the reluctance with which many Minnesotans greet an all-too-brief Autumn. Others, for reasons I'll never comprehend, get exuberant about snow and ice and cold and sledding and skating and skiing and snowmobiling. I tend to spend Winter brooding and looking forward to what passes for Spring around here.

The scientists and climatologists tell us that our Winters are warming more than our Summers. I won't quibble with that but our Summers seem to have become considerably more consistently humid than I recall from several decades ago. I'll not complain too much though, since the last report I saw had parts of Louisiana suffering from Hurricane Laura while a fire at chemical complex near Lake Charles prompted orders to keep windows and doors closed and AC turned off! On the Gulf Coast! In late August!

autumn fire, have s'more?

Photo by J. Harrington

Next week evenings may be cool enough that we can enjoy a fire or two in our fire pit. Maybe we can even get the makin's and put together some s'mores to celebrate the beginning of meteorological Autumn. Even though September 1 isn't any kind of Druid holiday that I know of, honoring the first day of Autumn, meteorological speaking, seems like a worthwhile endeavor.

Fall Parties

Becca Klaver

I cannot wait for fall parties.
The invitations have begun to roll in.

I used to think I loved summer parties
until they got this year so sweaty and sad,

the whole world away at the shore,
sunk in sweet and salt.

Goodbye, summer: 
you were supposed to save us

from spring but everyone just slumped
into you, sad sacks 

pulling the shade down on an afternoon 
of a few too many rounds. 

Well, I won’t have another.
I’ll have fall. The fall of parties

for no reason, of shivering rooftops,
scuffed boots, scarves with cigarette holes.

I’ll warm your house.
I’ll snort your mulling spices.

I’ll stay too late, I’ll go on a beer run,
I’ll do anything 

to stay in your dimly lit rooms 
scrubbed clean of all their pity.

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