Tag: Autumn

2026 Autumnal Activities

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So, Camera Girl and I are walking through our annual farewell to summer ritual.  Today I picked the very last string beans and the crops of raspberries and her beloved grape tomatoes are visibly shrinking down to the end.  She picked the last eggplants but they were too small to eat.  The pool has been closed for a couple of weeks and now I’m putting away all the chairs and tables and stuff for the winter.  Even the Japanese beetles are dying off and today I saw one of the preying mantids looking lonely for something juicy to eat.  Although he seemed to be making due on small red dragonflies.  These fliers are still prevalent but also seem to be running out of food.  The various flowers are almost all dying.  The only thing that hasn’t bloomed yet are the Montauk Daisies and the Wolfbane.  I guess there are still plenty of bees; bumble and honey, but there seems to be a desperation in the way they jump around on the goldenrod trying to get all the nectar and pollen before their neighbors get to it.

And with the kids all back in school, it’s a little too quiet for Camera Girl.  She takes it to heart when the grandkids aren’t around for more than a week at a time.  I try to cheer her by reminding her how exhausting it can be when the summer schedule fills up a couple of weeks with back, to back, to back kids’ events.  Well, that wasn’t a good idea.  It just got her mad at me!  So, I just sympathize with her grandmaternal feelings and remind her that a plethora of birthday parties are sure to be starting up soon and she’ll be satisfyingly exhausted before she knows it.

And Camera Girl has lived up to her name lately she has spotted a number of photographic subjects for me.  She let me know that there was a hawk perched on the back of the bench that we put next to her new pond.  I got a bunch of shots through the living room window with the 400-600mm lens.  The contrast wasn’t as good as I would have liked but when I download them, I hope they’re passably good.  She also spotted a big green (so she tells me) caterpillar on a walk we took in the park.  We took it home for photos and it turned out to be a type of sphynx moth (white-lined sphinx moth; Hyles lineata).  I was trying to keep it to hatch out the moth but the darned thing didn’t know it was supposed to like tomato plant leaves.  So, I let the recalcitrant larva go on its way.

Tomorrow we are thinking about going to an antique car show which is something that people around Dunwich seem to do a lot.  But we’ll have to see.  Tomorrow is the last day of my five-day promotional book giveaway and I’ve been like some kind of fanatic watching the dashboard tickers recording the orders.  I’m kind of obsessed.  But maybe I’ll tear myself away to see Henry Ford’s innovative horseless carriages paraded down the streets of various Dunwich environs.  Enjoy the day.

The Last Gasp

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A beautiful early autumn day.  The sky is blue, the clouds are light and the air is crisp.  The last few butterflies rest on the ground on top of dry leaves that are strewn everywhere.  They lie in the sun until they have enough heat to fly.

 

But they merely bide their time until they exit this world very soon.  A few dragonflies still make their sentry rounds along the perimeter searching for whatever flying insect life remains.

I see honey bees on the golden rod and a few hover flies here and there.  The wolfbane is ready to burst open any day.

The trees are shedding their leaves everywhere you look.  Sometimes they stream down in showers and sometimes one by one.  While I was taking a few photos, I felt them dropping on my head and shoulders.

November Leaves

A beautiful day, a golden day that very soon will be just a memory as October marches toward Halloween and the days shorten toward winter.  And these are a reminder that it’s time to finish all the yard chores before the cold weather sets in.  All the furniture, hoses, tools, and gardening equipment need to be gathered and stored away.  Fences needed to be strengthened, holes filled and damage repaired all along the length of the buildings.

Luckily for me Camera Girl has provided a list of all my chores!  Lucky me.

But this has been a good year for setting things right.  Major repairs were successfully completed in time for winter and just a few finishing strokes are needed to return everything to normal.  The next forty days will be very busy with annoying responsibilities that will be … very annoying.  But once that is over, I will be in a much better place schedule wise and every otherwise.  And coincidentally we will all be past the milestone of Election Day.  All of the excitement and uncertainty will be over once and for all.  I can stop thinking about all this political claptrap once and for all.  This election is a complete acid test.  If a Kamala Harris can be installed in the White House under the circumstances that have prevailed for the last four years, then there is absolutely no reason to think that my point of view has any relation to who is made president.

At that point I will order my life according to the laws of cause and effect as they are demonstrated not by what is said but by what is done.  I will take it as my responsibility to protect my family as best I can from the predatory elements that have been unleashed by the people in charge and teach them to read the signs in order to do the same for their families.  I will look for like minded people to gather with and enjoy the good things that this world provides.  And I will look for any leaders who might appear who show they can handle themselves and provide a refuge for those who aren’t deluded by the toxic nonsense that the regime teaches to the weak minded and the gullible.

So here we are.  October will come and go quickly.  And after that unpleasantness in early November the holidays will be upon us.  I’m looking forward to gathering with friends and family and go over all the milestones that have happened this year.  And plan for next year’s.  I’m looking forward to eating too much of the rich food that Camera Girl is famous for.  And spending hours shooting the breeze with family that I don’t see often enough.  And we’ll perform all the typical rituals and congratulate each other for surviving another year.

Yes, it was a beautiful day and a good day to get things done.

The Haunted Election

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Election Day this year is the night of the full moon and I just saw the first wolfsbane flowers in my yard.

 

Even a man who’s pure of heart

and says his prayers by night

may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms

and the moon is full and bright

The damp cool autumnal weather certainly evokes a Halloween mood in my neighborhood.  We have our share of  jack o’lanterns festooning the house and the grandkids are already imagining their trick or treat loot.  But this year even Election Day has an unreal flavor to it.  Outlandish candidates like Fetterman and that creepy old ghoul haunting the White House add an Edgar Allan Poe tinge to even the political page.

Now am I claiming that werewolf John Fetterman will be lopsidedly prowling the woods of Pennsylvania in his stretched out hoodie tearing apart innocent Republican voters in his insane lust to become a United States Senator?  Well, read the poem and do the math yourself!  I’m going to add a little extra garlic to Camera Girl’s sauce this week and hope for the best.

Seasonal Activities

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So today is the last official day of summer.  Tomorrow is the Autumnal Equinox but here in Dunwich fall is well advanced.  The crickets are hiding under stones and digging down to avoid the chill well before sundown.  Their chirping is becoming slower and weaker each day.  The frogs are still enthusiastically croaking and piping in the swamp but even they haven’t got too much longer to go.

We’ve gotten tons of rain in the last couple of weeks so the grass is green again and growing.  But the vegetable garden is on its last legs.  There are some peppers and eggplants almost ready to pick and a couple of butternut squash in a race to ripen before the death of the vines they’re on.  And the flower gardens are down to a few new cone flowers and some black eyed susans that haven’t given up the ghost yet.

Even the dragonflies are so lethargic that I think I could catch them with my hands if I tried.  Camera Girl saw a hummingbird a couple of days ago but they must be ready to head south already.  I haven’t seen any butterflies in the last couple of days so maybe they’re all gone.

So, it’s officially time to shut everything down and winterize the grounds.  All the lawn and pool furniture has to be stored away.  My fence repairs will have to be completed before the ground freezes.  And there are some incidentals.  I have to install a tree swing for Princess Sack of Potatoes.  I’ll use my weight as a test for the branch we’ve selected.  It’s in an odd spot because of a slope but it’s the only convenient branch.  I’ve also got to replace the transmission on my snowblower.  The parts are in but I’m hemming and hawing because I don’t want to do it.  It’s supposed to be straight forward but you know how that is.

Then there’s the rotten wood that needs to be replaced.  I’ve been stalling on that too.  Realistically I can skip this year but I promised myself I’d get the ball rolling and tackle one or two problems before winter.  At the least I should cover the problem areas with some tarps to avoid additional damage.  Maybe I’ll flip a coin.

The shorter days are already noticeable.  After dinner the sun is behind the hill in the west.  The light is gone by seven o’clock.  But the good news is that I mourned the end of summer on the last day of July.  After that I’ve already skipped ahead to thoughts of winter and any incidental good weather is all gravy as far as I’m concerned.  So here I am concentrating on Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas to get me through the end of the year and into the new one.

This year I have the elections to distract me from the shortening days and cooling temperatures.  The horror of Biden, Pelosi and Schumer along with their henchmen in the Deep State and the Media should provide stimulation that can’t be overlooked.  After all we could be looking at the official end of the republic as a legitimate political institution.  That’s got to be a noteworthy event to live through.  And even if we are saved by a shocking Republican victory I don’t think that will be something to sleep through.  And who knows, World War III might be in the wings if Biden keeps poking the Russian bear.

And I have a long list of tasks that I can perform indoors.  I’ve got a ton of pictures that need adjusting and all kinds of writing that has to be done so I’ll be anything but bored.

But it’s funny.  Once it gets chilly at night, say in the forties, we close the windows after dark.  And then there’s no outdoor sounds to hear.  No frogs, no owls, no coyotes even.  And that’s a big change.  You become detached from the natural world and plugged into the artificial one.  Electric light takes over and you tend to go to bed later and get up later.  Well, not Camera Girl.  She’s plugged into the dogs’ schedule and they’ll get her up at 6 am even if the apocalypse descends on us.  But I start to stay up later and read too much and watch too much television.

But that’s normal.  We compensate for the change of season as we do.  And there are family activities coming up.  Kids’ soccer games and birthday parties are in the offing.  And it’s almost time to drag out the Universal Classic Monster movies and introduce the youngsters to the hokey joys of Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolfman.  I think I’ll indulge in some popcorn for that film festival.

Okay, Autumn 2022, let’s see what you’ve got.