I hate feeling rushed.
As much as I loved our recent trip to Ireland (see Every Sign a Song Cue), I regretted traveling during autumn. It’s my favorite season, by a slight but measurable margin. I don’t like being away from the homestead at this, the best time of year. I want to savor the season, experience it fully before moving on to winter.
And yet . . .
It’s not quite that drastic here, but this year, it feels close! (Internet meme.)
Halloween season started while we were in Ireland. That was interesting and exciting, seeing how Halloween appears in the country that more or less invented it (sadly, it proved indistinguishable from ours…). We arrived home with only a week of the season left, which led to us deciding whether or not to even bother decorating this year. Thankfully, we did, or we’d feel even more rushed.
Then, the morning after Halloween night, winter arrives according to the “natural” calendar we tend to keep (see Samhain Welcomes Winter). I’m still trying to hang onto autumn.
The weather’s on our calendar’s side, though. On November 1st we got colder temperatures and a fresh, 40 knot gale (46+m.p.h.). The forecast threatened snow, although it called for a mix of rain soon after.
Snow down to the cirque on November 1st (Photo: Mark A. Zeiger).
Besides that, we’ve hardly seen any mushrooms since we came home! I thought we might see most of our autumn favorites, too old to eat, puddled about on the forest floor, but we’ve seen almost no sign. I suspect the deer that have moved into the area are eating them.
Luckily, we have enough fire wood to at least get us started on a cold winter. It may not be necessary—word is that we’ve got El Niño developing, meaning our winter will more likely be wetter and warmer than usual. I can’t depend on that prognosis, though, so I’ll continue to rush to bring in the remaining wood.
But, the winter celebrations can be held off, slightly at least. Thanksgiving is still a whole month away, Christmas won’t start till soon after. There’s still time to adjust to the change of seasons. I hope.
I’ll continue to grumble about it. Meanwhile, I think there’s some leftover Halloween candy around here somewhere . . . .
The leaves here in n. Ark are beautiful this year – wen t from a very hot summer to fall in a week – Have a cemetary north of here called Maple View , The lanes are lined with Maple trees – no one goes to see mom during the year ( maybe not everyone), but when the trees turn it becomes a tourist mecca – were now in a wet cool streak – Halloween got rained out this year – got the propane on – hope it last till Jan – Eating some of the Tootsie Rolls we got for the kids right now. Enjoy your days and life style – Better quit before this computer goes haywire
Linn, sounds nice! I forgot how much I enjoy visiting cemeteries until we visited some in Ireland. In the fall colors, it must be spectacular!