Because I post on Sunday, I usually feel the need to say something spiritual in my message, but today I think I'll talk about Autumn, and the changes in the weather that it brings. As I get going, I may venture off into something else, so my title reflects my scatter-brained approach to today's entry.
Last week I noticed a need to keep the bed's quilt on top of me at night. That means the temperature is dipping down into the 40s outside. Soon I'll need to wear slippers around the house, and don a sweater during the day.
It rained all night last night. That's so nice, because we need the moisture. In fact, it rained most of the morning today. It slacked off just before I had to go to church. Thinking it was going to continue, I put on my new pink rain jacket. Of course, it didn't rain a lick all during church, and wouldn't you know it? I left my pretty pink rain gear hanging in the hallway at church. Maybe if I blog about it, I'll remember it next week. Maybe some of you will remind me in a comment to bring it home next week?
The pre-fall weather has been quite nice, but next week the weatherman says we're going to have a bit of warming up. I imagine that will be the last gasp of summer, now that fall is officially here. In the mountains, that means something that you don't notice much in the Phoenix area. It means that the slight yellowing of my oak trees will soon morph into bright yellow trees, then bare branches. We'll have orange and gold and red leaves around here before too long. The daytime temperatures will get nippy, and frost can't be too far behind. In fact, frost will probably be on the pumpkin next month.
I enjoy fall. I no longer panic when I smell wood smoke in autumn. It's not from a forest fire; it's my neighbors stoking up their woodstove to keep warm. There's no fragrance quite like it. I've mentioned the turning of the leaves. Another thing going on is elk bugling. Just as there is no fragrance like wood smoke, there is no sound that resembles an elk calling. It's a part of living in the pine forests that I love.
What do you love about where you live?
I'd rather brag on where I use to live. I visited VA in 1977 for the first time and fell in love with it. I love the fact that there are four distinct season but none of them are particularly harsh. I love the fact that the water of the Atlantic Ocean is always cold even in August and rough, the rougher the more I like it. I love that fact that I was just a few hours away from DC and all the cultural stuff and the temple and a few hours from the Shenandoah and just a few hours from Kitty Hawk. I loved woodstoves in the winter and the smell of chili or stew and I loved the smell of snow. I'd go on but I'm making myself homesick.
ReplyDeleteOh, Marsha, Marsha, Marsha,
ReplyDeleteHow you made me pine for the pines! I love autumn, the colors, the smells, the coolness of the air. I especially rejoice in fall this year as I've had to ENDURE (and I mean that with all the fervor of my soul!) the summer. Nasty, wretched, cruel joke from nature. But once again, I survived. I hope someday to be back in the pines. I miss it terribly.
I thought it was very appropriate that the first day of autumn was the first day it felt fairly comfortable outdoors in midday here in Gilbert/Chandler area. I'm ready for the change.
ReplyDeleteFall in Christopher Creek sounds enticing. I'm reminded of the glorious autumns on the farm south of Rexburg, Idaho -- piling yellow cottonwood leaves and romping in them as if on a trampoline (which so far as I know hadn't yet been invented) that let us scramble back up on our own power.
Winters were something else. We sank even deeper into snowdrifts, but came up laughing. Clear winter nights let the stars blaze so brightly that even withut a moon I could see across the snow for what seemed miles to me.
And cold! One winter when I was in high school, I doubt it got any warmer than forty degrees below zero for a whole week. The first day, our school bus couldn't run because the oil pan was frozen. One girl suffered frostbite waiting for the bus to come. But I never remember hating winter.
Winter around Tokyo was cold and sometimes snowy, but it never lasted long. All summer, clouds hung around the horizon constantly. It was months after we moved on base, and just after a small typhoon, that I discovered the view out my bedroom window included Mount Fuji poking majestically above the skyline. Things felt both familiar and very foreign. Bamboo, rice paddies, packed trains with actual pushers hired to shove a few more in. And the cherry blossoms in the spring were magnificant.
In Sydney, NSW, the winters (July and August) were chilly, but we didn't see snow. The birds were so different; cockatoos, lorikeets, pink and gray galahs, kookaburras, and tiny bell birds whose call resembled striking a crystal goblet with a knife. For Christmas, Santas sweated in red suits, but the family liked to take watermelon and have a picnic on the beach.
There really is beauty all around. I've never yet lived in a place I didn't love, though it took a few weeks to grow to love Del Rio, Texas.