Sit Up and Take Notice, It's Fall

In spite of my best effort to hang onto Summer, I do believe Fall is leaping into action, kicking summer around, dragging it off to the trash heap.  There it goes, thrashing the tree branches around, scaring up the leaves and sending them all in a dither to gutters and windbreaks.

I thought at first that I move more quickly in fall than I do in Summer because it's nippier, but now I think it's because the time between sunup and sundown is shorter.  You have to cram your daylight errands and chores into a shorter time span than you did in June when the summer solstice added all sorts of languid feelings of ineffable contentment to your mindset.  What?  Hurry?  We've got all day long! Come sit here on the swing and have a nice cold one with me.  You and Billy Holliday sing "Summmertiiiiiime, and the livin' is easeeeeeeeeee...." and a golden filtered light looks like amber has coated everything.

But, in Fall, it's looking brisk and edgy out there, more like a Catholic nun whacking her palm with her yard stick.  "Get going, youngster.  None of that lazy nonsense in MY season.  Time to get down to business."  Whack, whack.  She is not looking furious just yet, but the lollygagging is over for the year.

I bought a bag of apples, turned my back once and for all on stone fruit, and I'm eyeing the winter squashes in the store.  It's a start anyway.  Spring is way over on the opposite side of the year, frolicking in Australia about now, or in South Africa, in her pale green sprouts and light fragrant scents made of crocuses and jonquils.

That ol' nun Fall is a stern headmistress, but she knows how to get ready for Winter, so it's time to pay attention and sit up straight.  It's high time.