Hints of the season to come #phenology

Pay attention to the roadsides as you're out and about this weekend and thereafter. The early signs of autumn are beginning to appear. One or two of the poison ivy leaves along our roadside have turned red. Sumac leaves are doing the same thing, only more so. Goldenrod flowers are now appearing. This makes me happy not because I don't like summer (I like it when the temperatures stay well below 90℉) but because autumn has been my favorite season for as far back as I can remember, at least back as far as high school.

poison ivy leaves turned red

Photo by J. Harrington

By  the time Labor Day arrives, I've had enough of heat and humidity and bugs and cutting the grass. Autumn leaves are so much more vibrant than summer's verdant monochrome. Daytime high  temperatures in the upper 60's and low 70's are near perfect. Fresh crops of local apples and pumpkins brighten kitchens and taste buds. Brook trout, in my opinion the prettiest of our native salmonids, begin to spawn in September. Males become even more handsome as they undergo spawning color changes along their lower bodies. If we're really lucky, kitchens frequently are filled with the aroma of baking berry or apple or pumpkin pies.

sumac leaves changing  color

Photo by J. Harrington

Don't let the impending pleasures of autumn interfere with your enjoyment of the second half of summer. Remember, tomorrow, July 17, is mid-summer in meteorological terms. Astronomically it occurs on August 6. So, for the next three weeks or so we're truly in mid-summer, then the season of summer begins to pale and wane as autumn grows stronger.

[UPDATE: First milkweed seed pods visible on a few local plants.]

Autumn

By Grace Paley

1

What is sometimes called a   

   tongue of flame

or an arm extended burning   

   is only the long

red and orange branch of   

   a green maple

in early September   reaching

   into the greenest field

out of the green woods   at the

   edge of which the birch trees   

appear a little tattered   tired

   of sustaining delicacy

all through the hot summer   re-

   minding everyone (in   

our family) of a Russian

   song   a story

by Chekhov   or my father

2

What is sometimes called a   

   tongue of flame

or an arm extended   burning

   is only the long

red and orange branch of

   a green maple

in early September   reaching   

   into the greenest field

out of the green woods   at the   

   edge of which the birch trees

appear a little tattered   tired

   of sustaining delicacy

all through the hot summer   re-

   minding everyone (in   

our family) of a Russian

   song   a story by

Chekhov or my father on

   his own lawn   standing   

beside his own wood in

   the United States of   

America   saying (in Russian)

   this birch is a lovely

tree   but among the others

   somehow superficial

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