Where Art Thou?
O my beloved Autumn, where art thou? You teased me for what? A week? Back early in September, then you went away again. Thankfully, I did not fall for that trick and switch out the warm weather clothes for the cool. All of my woolies are still packed away, although I do get one or another of them out occasionally, pet it, then put it right back.
On the bright side, the scraggly tomato plants I have been nursing since spring time are finally yielding lots of tomatoes. I have looked at the 14-day forecast and see nothing that even comes close to a frost so I am wondering if I will be having fresh tomatoes for Thanksgiving.
In the meantime, I am back to thinking about how photoperiods affect humans as much as any other animal. Even though it has remained quite summery outside, the photoperiods—the balance of daylight and dark in a 24-hour cycle—have been changing as usual for this time of year. Along with that, the position of the sunrises and sunsets shifts and the angle of the sunlight shifts. All of these factors influence the natural world, but since we humans have buildings and electric lights, we can, to some extent, mitigate those influences. I live out in the country and make a conscious effort to keep closer to the natural world (the use of air conditioning is a notable exception to that scheme), so maybe I am more affected by these changes.
Some sort of winter-is-approaching feeling cut through the 90-degree heat and settled into my brain last week. I stopped by the store and bought a whole chicken then came home and got five pounds of ground venison out of the freezer. Now I have several containers of made-up soups and stews in the freezer. Yesterday, I canned beans and the day before that dug out half my spice collection in preparation for making more spicy, warming, comforting soup. Today, I am thinking I need to start waking up my sourdough so I can have some good, sturdy bread to go with all those soupy meals…that I will be enjoying in the cool of the air conditioning.
Our work goes on as scheduled, no matter the weather. My guys have been sad to have a few extra blistering hot days, but happy not to have had to put on their arctic gear for helicopter surveys, yet. It does seem to me the extended warm weather is affecting the deer hunters. Deer season is probably going to sneak up on them the way a bright yellow tree snuck up on me last week and reminded me that it is actually late October, time for leaves to change colors and start falling. I guess I will suspend the complaining for now, make another cup of coffee, and go enjoy a balmy late-October, front porch sunrise.