8/19/08
Every August, about the time the date becomes two digits, a lone branch amid the green backdrop of the countryside will suddenly turn red.
The effect is as arresting as a traffic light, and shocks me out of the complacency of summer. Warning, warning — frost is only a month away!
Already we’ve lost an hour and a half of daylight, and that green backdrop has taken on a burnished tinge. Birds have stopped singing because their young have fledged and the parents are now molting, lying low while they generate fresh feathers for the trek south. Although flowers still abound and the grass still needs mowing, trees and shrubs are in full fruit, already being gathered and stored by savvy critters. Vegetable gardens are at the end of their cycle, bursting with produce.
We’re still running around in shorts and T-shirts, with the windows wide open even at night. But we’re also stacking firewood and calculating what projects must be completed before snow. Unnerved by that inevitability, we’re making time to be outdoors, to stay outdoors, to stop and smell the roses. Our allotted three months are almost over. Time to stop flitting like butterflies and start thinking like squirrels.
I wonder what it’s like to live in the tropics, where it’s warm year-round and things are always blooming. How do you mark time in that environment?
Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardens
Posted by: Opening the heart — Carolyn Haley
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