The shortening days and the changing colors of autumn are visual reminders to me that another year is coming to a close.
Fall finally arrived with full force on our farm when we had several nights of killing frost – which happened the day after I wrote about our frost-free fall. The growing season is officially over, although we need some additional frost before we harvest our brussels sprouts.
Autumn and the changing season has been a favorite writing topic of mine over the years. A few years ago I wrote about the duller fall colors, which has been the same story this year. The scientific explanation is a slower conversion of C⁵⁵H⁷²MgN⁴O⁵ and C⁵⁵H⁷⁰MgN⁴O⁶ – a formulaic latency of the destruction of chlorophyll to promote the formation of anthocyanins.
Trust me – I have a bachelor of science degree. Or perhaps that is the formula for turning lead into gold.
One of my favorite fall essays was written 10 years ago when I stopped to take a picture of a barn on an abandoned homestead. The hillside behind the barn was a canvas of reds, orange, yellow, brown and green illuminated by the sun and framed by a bright blue sky. The setting sun was already casting a shadow on the floor of the valley and in a few minutes the scene would be lost.
I tried to capture the melancholy that I feel with the turn of the seasons.
“The beauty of fall is tinged with some sadness. The shortened days and cooler temperatures are our annual reminder that we’re growing older.
Work undone.
Words unsaid.
Regrets remembered.”
Last year I wrote about sitting on my back porch on an early fall morning.
“The valley was waking up. The birds sang and coyotes mourned in the distance. The sun was breaking through the morning fog.
Then autumn whispered, “I am here.”
She was there across the creek in the green canopy of leaves. Splotches of red and yellow dotted the verdant canvas. She was there in the apple trees. She was there in the morning sun.
The change in seasons is a reminder that I’m growing older.
We’re growing older.”
Fall is also the season of harvest, and I wrote about memories of my younger days on the farm.
“In those days corn harvest was done with a single-row picker and the cobs were dropped into a gravity box. It was often my job to balance inside the gravity box and push the cobs into the hammer mill, which ground the corn before it was blown into the silo.
The days of the single-row picker are long gone, but on fall days I can still hear in my mind the loud roar of the hammer mill. I can see the fine husks of corn floating through the air like snowflakes. The smell of the freshly-ground corn fills my nostrils, along with the acrid aroma of the propionic acid used as a preservative. It’s the sight, sound and smell of the harvest season.”
Those days are gone, but for me fall is a time of reflection.
“Life is often as tenuous as the withering stem that holds the leaf to the branch. We know not if we’re in the autumn of our lives or whether spring will come.
She teases us, autumn does, with her fleeting beauty. “Take my hand,” she whispers through the rustling leaves. So we do and we dance amidst the blazing landscape, leaving our cares and worries behind, if only for a while.
Inhale autumn’s beauty.
Be still.
Thank your maker.
Enjoy the dance.”