Early Frost
October brings light frosts that make patches of glittering silver and white in the dips and valleys around our home, and while its beauty is magical, I want summer to linger as late into the autumn as is possible. What I really want is to open my windows at night to be greeted by a chorus of crickets and the occasional leftover cicada.
Those inky black nights arrive earlier each evening, but as long as the nighttime choir of summer music still plays, I can pretend we’re in the throes of high summer. So when frost warnings were posted I threw blankets over my flowers, the ones the bees like to visit, to keep them blooming a bit longer.
But freeze warnings came too many nights in a row, and how could I toss blankets over the crickets to keep them going a wee bit longer?
Last night I opened my window expecting to hear the song of a few errant insects, but all that met me was silence. This October brought us drought and dryness along with the early silence of winter. I left the window open, since fresh air in the house is welcome, and I decided the time had come to finally fully embrace the beauty of an early November.
I know. Halloween isn’t upon us yet, but I go by the calendar that’s outside my door. We’re supposed to have beautiful weather all next week, and I plan on venturing out to watch the trees. Their arms are lifted heavenward, pleading for rain, but they are showing their true colors now. Many trees here thrust yellow branches skyward, but oranges are almost as prolific.
The red maples are rare and that much more precious to me. I have half a mind to plant sugar maples in our woods, so I can see the red of autumn every year. The creek is at a trickle, and it’s strange to look down the ravine and see the creek bed scattered with leaves.
The winds have picked up today, so the air is full of fluttering leaves longing to rest upon the ground. I’m sitting on the back porch as I write, watching the magic of seeing the wind. One could dance amid that magic and become a wood sprite for a time, and I sip my coffee, warming my fingers while soaking up the magic of sunny days and blues skies filled with flying leaves.
As much as we need rain, the sun brings out the beauty across the land. We usually have several days of rains in autumn, and the leaves scatter under dull grey clouds, so this year has made me see autumn in her full glory once again. It’s fresh and new. Never quite the same, and while I watch the squirrels dig in the ground and the deer make their way slowly across my lawn and down into the forest, I soak in this autumn. This year.
Halloween is almost upon us, which means I’m going to take my big pumpkins and carve happy and scary faces on them to greet the kids as they gather candy. We usually sit outdoors and offer a warming bit of whiskey to the adults along with candy ripe for the picking. I’ve been filling up on horror films, and Halloween (the original) always plays on the actual day itself.
I’m ready for November now, but I’m going to enjoy every taste of October left to us. I hope you find a patch of sunlight and can soak up the waning days of this glorious month. I’m heading inside for another cup of coffee.
