Well this certainly got away from me! This should have been posted a couple of months ago instead it just grew longer and longer on my computer. So I will start carving it up and getting it posted!
Summer has had the essence sucked out of it and is rapidly waning; the plants, birds, and animals all tell the same tale: fall is poised and ready to move in. I love summer – I really and truly love it. It is lush and luxurious and lusty; it is sensual and sexy and seductive and sultry; it is rife with life. Days are long – they begin early and last well into the night. It is…alive.
But as time moves on the heat and humidity begin to take a toll – on everything – especially when there is a lack of rain as we’ve had the last several years here. Plants begin to brown and wilt, streams dry up – even ponds go dry – lawns begin to brown and burn, and at times the heat can wear you to the bone. However, at the same time, you notice the sun coming up later and setting earlier. On the 4th of July we all sit impatiently until after 9PM for the fireworks to begin and even then, it is still just a tad too light out still. But by mid-August you notice it is getting dark out and it’s not even 8PM yet: autumn is creeping in on us.
And I welcome it! It is time to settle in at 7PM now. It is nice to open the window at night and feel 50-something degree air instead of the summer’s 80-something degree air. I notice the difference in both my hikes and my walks. In the summer when I hike I now bring two bottles of water with me while in the cooler air I won’t bring any with me. And my average split times walking went up beginning in May and climbed through June, staying high for July but slowly getting better in August, I am sure that by late-September my splits will be similar to my April times. That heat takes its toll.
Of course, it is more than that, fall harkens Halloween, my favorite holiday (even though it isn’t a holiday)! It is September 1st and I already have a small skeleton hanging on the driveway door. Unlike so many years past, I have not yet made my first visit to Spirit Halloween and that is almost completely due to my three oldest grandkids having moved to Maine. When they were down here, I load them into the truck and haul them off to Spirit Halloween in early August, as soon as one opened. Easily over twelve years of making the run with at least one grandchild. My two youngest are just a little too young…I think. Teddy is four and Charlotte is almost two. They love watching YouTube videos of people exploring Home Depot and Spirit Halloween to show all the decorations so maybe this is the year….