End of the Season

  It's the end of the season. Summer has officially given notice, and left the building. As I look to the week ahead, the forecast is throwing down signs of a few 80 degree days to come, but after all, this is the last day of September. Global warming notwithstanding, even the foliage is looking worn out as if to say, the jig's up, game over; we are on the downside of the slope.

  A surprising number of flowers are valiantly blooming, including my favorite Mexican Sunflowers, but they are beginning to look a bit faded. They remind me of the mature woman who should know better, but is still trying to rock hipster styles and remain au currant with the younglings, lipstick too bright, and concealing cream caked in the lines around her eyes.

  Autumn is my favorite time of the year.  I love the colors; maybe it is the exit of the summer humidity, that does it but the world takes on more intense hues.  It reminds me of a Van Gogh painting, the pigment smeared on with a palette knife.  Familiar landscapes glow in gold, red, and green. The sky takes on an azure depth absent during other seasons.

  We are losing the daylight too, which doesn't make me happy. The early twilights remind me that we are beginning that long slow slide into winter grays. Soon we will give up the ghost all together and turn the clocks back, daylight savings  still being controversial in this part of America. There are only 24 hours in a day. It's just about how you order them.  But the farmers don't need the light once the harvest is in, or so the logic goes.  I didn't used to care, and enjoyed the late evenings to work in the yard or walk my dogs. But these days my biorhythms no longer dig it. It takes me two weeks to recover from the one hour switch. Remind me not to plan any trips to Australia. I'll be years behind myself.

  My pets don't get the time change either. They are creatures of extreme habit, and five-thirty a.m. is five thirty a.m. Time of week, time of year, it doesn't matter. They want to chow down at the accustomed feeding hour.

  As much as I love the beautiful weather, the shorter cooler days signal seasonal chores.  I bought this house because of all the mature trees in the yard.  The oaks, maples, and ash provide a cool leafy  summer canopy. Their covering shade keeps the house cool enough that I don't have to use air conditioning except during the worst of the heat. A couple months later the same trees litter the yard with a grass choking volume of those same leaves.  My weekend days are consumed with mulching up what feels like a never ending leaf dump. I continue to tell myself that just like mowing, the exercise is good for me.

  In addition, the flower garden that I so optimistically plant in May has to be cut down and cleared so like Lazarus, it can rise from the dead next spring.  By now it is suffering from benign neglect.  Every year I say I'll do better, build up the soil, pull the weeds, and figure out what the mystery bush is. This is a bush that came with the label raspberry, but in five years has done nothing even vaguely raspberry-ish.  I'm beginning to suspect it is a changeling, deliberately mislabeled by the fairies, not producing a berry of any sort while taking up ever more space in the garden.

  It is time  to once again consider a patch of peeling paint on the front of my garage. It needs to be scraped and repainted before the weather turns too cold.  I first noticed it three years ago. Knowing my motivational level for this particular job, If I was a betting woman, I'd wager that it will still need paint a year from now. 

  A few miles north up on the lake, summer cottages are being closed up, the boats hoisted out of the water, another summer season put to rest.  Around here, other summer homes are being vacated as well.

  Funny how I walked by this nest every day and never knew it was there until my feathery neighbors were gone. Come to think of it, I haven't seen a robin in a couple of months. They clear out early.  The first part of this week I noticed I still had a humming bird coming to the feeder, but he will be off soon too. This one is probably tanking up for the long flight south.

  There are still a few weeks of beautiful weather remaining, if we are lucky, it might extend to Thanksgiving. There is still great beauty left in the year. You can see it in the bone structure of the earth around us, but like a  stunning woman, now old, the end is coming, the world is slowing down.