Ah Fall...

The aptly named Season of Fall is upon us and the leaves are doing their part, and beginning to fall from the trees. The colors are emerging from their summer camouflage of green, and the edges of the forest are beginning to look interesting. The Virginia Creeper is hanging in crimson drapes across the landscape and the purple grapes are showing in the vines. Along the roadsides and in the fields the goldenrod is turning, first brown, and then fluffy white with seed fuzz. The purple asters and tiny daisies are fading away and slipping into their seed faze. The Corn fields are quickly losing the green hues of summer and the stalks are drying out and turning that soft tan color that signals the coming of Halloween. Orange pumpkins lying in the fields are being gathered up and brought to the roadside stands to be oohed and ahhed over by eager children anxious to carve their jack-o-lanterns and put on their masks to go trick or treating. The mornings are crisp and the days are cool, soon the frost will kill of the annual flowers and the perennials will be going to sleep. The Apple trees are loaded with fruit waiting to be picked and the cider mill is ready to squeeze. Soon the flavor of fresh sweet apple cider will mix with the tast and texture of fresh warm doughnuts and it will officially be the Start of the Cold season. Enjoy the smells and the tastes and the feel of the fall. Take some time and walk in the leave and smell the fresh scent that they give off. Revel in the cool evening and build a fire to share with friends. Indoors or out! Get the garden ready for bed with the same care that you get your children ready, and when spring comes it will wake up easier. Gather in the seeds that you wish to save for next season. Cut the grass one last time and don't forget to put some fuel stabilizer in the gas tank before you run it. Get the snow blower ready, before you actually need it. Fill the windshield pisser in your car and get a couple of spare bottles now so you aren't scrambling in the dead of winter to find it to get the salt glaze off of your windshield. Fall is both a time to put things away, and to get things out. Enjoy the season while it lasts. I feel sorry for people who don't have a fall season. They don't know the beauty of the earth getting ready for winter.

Where is my summer?!?!

" Hot town
summer in the city,
Back of my neck
gettin dirty and gritty..."

Love that song, but it seems like this year it sure hasn't been true so far! This is mid-July, and I am comfortable wearing jeans and long sleeve shirts. That is completely wrong. I should be sweltering in hot, sticky weather, waiting for the end of the work day so I can jump in the swimming pool and enjoy a refreshing dip. I have been in the pool exactly once! and that was to work on cleaning it. In fact I haven't even been too worried about getting it completely cleaned yet, because I'm shivering in the morning and just happy to be warm in the afternoon.

I know that it's related to the global warming, and the truth is that in our temperate climate the loss of hot summers is one of the things that will happen, meanwhile the equatorial regions will be sweltering and probably in drought. It's all related people. I remember back in the early 90's when we had some doozy winter weeks and Time Magazine had a cover that showed Niagara Falls ice bridge, and the headline was something about a new ice age. It's all related. The warming melts the ice at the poles, which in turn slows the ocean currents, because the temperature gradient isn't as high, so the warm weather stay in the warm regions, and the cold weather stays in the cold regions. Eventually the cold builds up and the heat builds up and neither the twain shall meet. Yep The ice age is brought on by global warming. See? It's all related!

Oh well, I just want to be hot and sweaty and looking forward to a swim!! I can't do it this week, because now it's gonna RAIN!! (Plus it's still too cold!)