The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
10/20/2010 column
What can you say except….Ahhh! When the fall weather is like this, you just have to pause, exhale and enjoy the moments. I want to wrap my arms around this weather and hold on for dear life. I want to savor every warm, sunny filled minute because I know, once it is gone, it will be a long time in winter wear. Right now, sweatshirts are just warm enough. The wild temperature swings earlier this month felt like the weather was going through its own type of menopausal hot flashes. We didn’t know if we should grab insulated coveralls or if just a t-shirt would be enough. Right now I think the temperature has stabilized to a point of perfection for the season. Now if we can just hang on to this weather moment.
Trying to hold on to the weather is like trying to hold on to a bouquet of balloons on a breezy day. Your knuckles turn white because you are holding on so tight. You don’t want the strings to slip through your fingers. You want to enjoy the sight of colorful balloons dancing in the sky anchored to your hand. The feeling of joy this moment brings to you lightens your heart. But eventually the balloons will break free and float away. This beautiful fall weather will also eventually break and disappear. I guess we better enjoy every minute we have before fall slips through our fingers and winter arrives.
The gorgeous dry days we’ve been experiencing lately have helped to push harvest along. We are in the final stages. The combine arrived this morning to start taking out the high moisture corn. It is coming out in a range between not too wet and not too dry. It’s just about right, except I would call it more like mid-moisture corn. The warm temperatures, low humidity and an early killing frost have pulled the extra moisture out of everything. The yields have been mixed. Some fields aren’t quite what we were expecting but at least there will be enough feed for the cows and extra to store and sell later.
The warm fall weather reprieve has given me a chance to wash windows without having to wear neoprene gloves to protect my fingers from frostbite. Many years I have washed windows when it was a wee bit too cold without special gloves. I’ll be done with the barn windows soon and can then turn my attention to the house windows. There are still too many bugs crawling around on the southwardly facing house windows. The warm sunrays reflecting off the windows are a magnet drawing all kinds of bugs looking for a place to warm up and escape the inevitable cold. I’m going to have to wait until a frost takes them out for good before I can wipe away their trails across the glass.
Most of the leaves on the oak trees are scattered around the yard and some are piled into corners where the swirling north winds dropped them. I’m waiting for the big elm tree next to the machine shed to finish dropping its dry leaves before I start to rake. If I’m lucky, a good strong wind can blow most of the leaves out of the yard and across the open fields. Unfortunately the corn field north of the house was combined, so I may end up with more dried corn stalk debris in the yard than leaves when the wind stops blowing.
My friend Ann says she doesn’t rake the leaves in her yard. The sound of dry leaves crunching under her feet is a sound of the season she treasures. The sight of kids playing in leaf piles around the yard help the keep her young at heart. I agree. There are so many sights and sounds of this season I enjoy and treasure. Wiping off your chin after biting into a crisp, juicy apple. Snuggling under blankets on a moonlit hayride. Roasting weenies until they are well done over a crackling fire. Switching cows under a crisp starlit night sky looking for the Big Dipper. Warming my hands up over a steaming bowl of bouja. (For those outside of central Minnesota, bouja is a combination of every type of meat and veggie cooked outside in a huge kettle until you can’t recognize anything.) These are a few of my favorite fall things.
We have had a great second half of fall weather, but the temperatures aren’t the only special thing about this season. The sky has been full of wonder and delight. The blood moon lunar eclipse earlier this month was a great morning treat as I headed out for chores. The solar eclipse at sunset this week will be a unique opportunity to play in the sun looking for crescent shaped shadows. I wish I still had little kids around to share these moments of wonder with. Of course nothing can match the beauty every night at sunset when the sky becomes an artist’s pallet of reds, oranges, blues, purples and every other color in between hovering between the horizon as daylight yields to the night time sky.
As my grip on this fall weather starts to slip and give way to the next season, I’m going to squeeze every extra moment out of these special days and nights as I hold onto fall.