It’s beginning to look a lot like Autumn

It’s the official start of our transition from summer to autumn. Today is the first day of meteorological autumn, but you already knew that, right? Locally, the autumnal equinox will occur in the evening three weeks from today. So that provides, as I see it, a three week transition from summer’s end to full autumn. The reality that today isn’t really a real autumn day is reinforced by the temperature as this is being written (87℉) and the need to pick up our last Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] summer share today or tomorrow. Autumn’s boxes begin a week before the equinox.

Here’s what we’ll find in the last CSA box of summer:

• CABBAGE
• CUCUMBERS
• DELICATA SQUASH
• GREEN PEPPER
• LETTUCE
• RED CARMEN PEPPERS
• SUMMER SQUASH, and
• TOMATOES

We may put together a table of what was in each week’s share as a sort of garden phenology for this year.

Meanwhile, we are pleased to share some very unexpected good news on the political front. A Democrat, Mary Peltola, won the House seat special election in Alaska. She will become the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress. If Democrats actually manage to retain control of Congress, I may have to revise my assessment of the intelligence and moral terpitude of much of the electorate. That is a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

some years oak leaves show yellow underbellies

Photo by J. Harrington

There’s sourdough in a boule banneton in the refrigerator. I had thought to bake it today or tomorrow, but Saturday’s temperatures are supposed to be cooler so maybe we’ll cheat with an extra long proof. The last loaf turned out wonderful, but the dough keeps ending up stickier than I’m used to. Too much hydration maybe. Perhaps I’ll need to learn to live with some imperfection.

Poem Beginning with a Line from It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Maggie Smith

Just look—nothing but sincerity 
as far as the eye can see—
the way the changed leaves,

flapping their yellow underbellies
in the wind, glitter. The tree
looks sequined wherever

the sun touches. Does anyone
not see it? Driving by a field
of spray-painted sheep, I think

the world is not all changed.
The air still ruffles wool
the way a mother’s hand

busies itself lovingly in the hair
of her small boy. The sun
lifts itself up, grows heavy

treading there, then lets itself
off the hook. Just look at it
leaving—the sky a tigereye

banded five kinds of gold
and bronze—and the sequin tree
shaking its spangles like a girl

on the high school drill team,
nothing but sincerity. It glitters
whether we’re looking or not.

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