Dear maple trees,
Why the rush to shed your respectable verdant hues of summer, into the flaming, flamboyant attire of autumn? Far too soon we'll be hiding our eyes from your stripped skeletons of winter.
Yours in seasonal modesty,
Cathy
Showing posts with label seasons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seasons. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Monday, September 22, 2008
About things that make fall tolerable
The clearness of the sky.
The sweet and sticky crunch of a caramel apple. (Because an apple is healthy no matter what it's wrapped in. Or especially because of said wrapping.)
Football lights glowing from the high school on Friday nights.
Music wafting over the neighborhood during marching band practice in the evening.
Putting on jeans for the first time all summer and they still fit.
Fall street fairs.
Warm days that linger well into October.
Leaves going brilliant, even though they fall after.
The scent of leaves burning in a neighbor's yard.
Knowing the election will finally be over in a few weeks. As in, on my birthday.
Turning off the air conditioner for good.
Lots of candy on the shelves at the grocery.
Planning a trip to Chicago.
The World Series.
Maybe combining the last two for the first time ever.
Realizing I really have to work to come up with a whole post of things to like about fall. Because I miss summer already. And it's three seasons away.
The sweet and sticky crunch of a caramel apple. (Because an apple is healthy no matter what it's wrapped in. Or especially because of said wrapping.)
Football lights glowing from the high school on Friday nights.
Music wafting over the neighborhood during marching band practice in the evening.
Putting on jeans for the first time all summer and they still fit.
Fall street fairs.
Warm days that linger well into October.
Leaves going brilliant, even though they fall after.
The scent of leaves burning in a neighbor's yard.
Knowing the election will finally be over in a few weeks. As in, on my birthday.
Turning off the air conditioner for good.
Lots of candy on the shelves at the grocery.
Planning a trip to Chicago.
The World Series.
Maybe combining the last two for the first time ever.
Realizing I really have to work to come up with a whole post of things to like about fall. Because I miss summer already. And it's three seasons away.
Friday, November 16, 2007
About late yesterday afternoon
Walked out of work in to a wind sharp and cold and it took my breath away and blew me awake. Above me the pin oaks rustled and chattered as they will until next spring. The sky spit snow.
My car was stiff and reluctant to head home, unlike its driver.
To the west and north the cumulonimbus showed great blue rips and the wefts of light promised little but a hard freeze tonight.
In November, winter comes
Route 24 from Huntington to Fort Wayne ribbons through the small, farmland-flat valley of the Little River, with tree-filled ridges to the north and south--once, the Wabash-Erie Canal flowed there, too. Long gone, though a plaque for old Lock No. 4 can be read when you sit at the right place at the stop light in Roanoke.
The leaves linger long, even on the maples this year, and the ones around the houses on the north ridge still flame red and orange, though the brilliant puddles around them grow larger. Soon, all will be reduced to thin silhouettes.
The soybean fields are long since harvested, and the corn mostly so, the stalks bent and the fields stretching yellow-gray from the road to the wind-row down by the river.
But like a checkerboard oasis, acres of green intersperse the fallow. With the harvest, and empty fields, comes planting. Even now, already, winter wheat grows, and these fields will grow all season long, even as ice and snow cover them. The green remains.
I love winter wheat.
How about you? What gets you through the winter?
My car was stiff and reluctant to head home, unlike its driver.
To the west and north the cumulonimbus showed great blue rips and the wefts of light promised little but a hard freeze tonight.
In November, winter comes
Route 24 from Huntington to Fort Wayne ribbons through the small, farmland-flat valley of the Little River, with tree-filled ridges to the north and south--once, the Wabash-Erie Canal flowed there, too. Long gone, though a plaque for old Lock No. 4 can be read when you sit at the right place at the stop light in Roanoke.
The leaves linger long, even on the maples this year, and the ones around the houses on the north ridge still flame red and orange, though the brilliant puddles around them grow larger. Soon, all will be reduced to thin silhouettes.
The soybean fields are long since harvested, and the corn mostly so, the stalks bent and the fields stretching yellow-gray from the road to the wind-row down by the river.
But like a checkerboard oasis, acres of green intersperse the fallow. With the harvest, and empty fields, comes planting. Even now, already, winter wheat grows, and these fields will grow all season long, even as ice and snow cover them. The green remains.
I love winter wheat.
How about you? What gets you through the winter?
Monday, November 12, 2007
About waitin' for the sun to come out
On our way up to Michigan on Saturday, the sun was kind of in-and-out. We left under cloudy skies...then things lightened and it was partly cloudy awhile...then back to cloudy...party cloudy...but by the time we got to Canton, Michigan, it got cloudy and stayed that way--and worse!--for the rest of the weekend.
When it got home and were unloading, my neighbor across the street was racking leaves. "I hate being cooped up already!" she railed, and I knew just what she meant.
We got spoiled this summer--with the warm weather starting towards the end of April and and not leaving us until October. Too used to shorts and flipflops, windows open (or air conditioner on, I don't miss that!), no jacket needed, a Florida kind of life.
But it was back to the reality of what fall and winter in Indiana is really like, the short grey days (and they have seemed oh so short since the time change), the chill, the jeans-and-sweaters-and-winter-coat wardrobe (although the Michigan folks haven't quite all jumped on that wagon, I saw tons of guys in shorts and sandals), the AIS evenings.
If I ever have one second in the summer when I think longingly of jeans-and-sweaters weather, it takes one week of reality to remind me of why I love Florida.
I do like the seasons, I do like the change, I do I do I do I do, as the cowardly lion said in The Wizard of Oz. I just really don't like being cold.
I'll get through this winter, as I have all the others. Maybe we'll escape to The Sunshine State in March or so for a break. Although I've found that nothing feels worse on slightly sunburned skin than snow.
Well, what about you? Light or dark?
When it got home and were unloading, my neighbor across the street was racking leaves. "I hate being cooped up already!" she railed, and I knew just what she meant.
We got spoiled this summer--with the warm weather starting towards the end of April and and not leaving us until October. Too used to shorts and flipflops, windows open (or air conditioner on, I don't miss that!), no jacket needed, a Florida kind of life.
But it was back to the reality of what fall and winter in Indiana is really like, the short grey days (and they have seemed oh so short since the time change), the chill, the jeans-and-sweaters-and-winter-coat wardrobe (although the Michigan folks haven't quite all jumped on that wagon, I saw tons of guys in shorts and sandals), the AIS evenings.
If I ever have one second in the summer when I think longingly of jeans-and-sweaters weather, it takes one week of reality to remind me of why I love Florida.
I do like the seasons, I do like the change, I do I do I do I do, as the cowardly lion said in The Wizard of Oz. I just really don't like being cold.
I'll get through this winter, as I have all the others. Maybe we'll escape to The Sunshine State in March or so for a break. Although I've found that nothing feels worse on slightly sunburned skin than snow.
Well, what about you? Light or dark?
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