The desiccated leaves on the maple tree clatter together like plates in the dishwasher, each daring the other to fall off first. The sun slants at a lower angle, reaching fewer of the plants in the garden—all of which have reached their autumn stage: seed heads and brown leaves; no more food for the hummingbirds.
The dirt path we’d worn into the ground when taking the dogs from the house into the big yard has grassed over as we don’t make that walk nearly as much anymore. The yard is much emptier without a dog or two in it; we feel their absence keenly and with much grief.
The trails at Cobble Hill Mountain have gone from silty and dry to packed and damp. The maple leaves cover the cobbles on the trail, making it tricky to navigate without twisting an ankle. But it’s nice to be in the coolness of the bush, listening to birds chirping again. They seem to have disappeared during the heat of August, but are back with their lilting songs.
We fill the bird bath in the front garden and hope the birds come to bathe and drink. Some days in September we had several birds visiting at a time. It would be nice to see more before they’ve travelled south for the winter.
There are pumpkins in the fields, and apples and pears on the trees—we have more than we know what to do with. Some are good eating apples, which we’ve been making the most of. Others are better cooking apples, and we’ve made and frozen many crisps and apple pies.
Autumn is the season of putting things to bed – the garden, the warm summer days (though I could do without the heat waves), the shorts. I’m still wearing mine but it does get a bit chilly in the early morning when I set out on Cobble Hill Mountain in a t-shirt and shorts. I warm up as I go, though, so am okay. Change will come later in the season, when I’ll have to switch to pants and long-sleeved shirts.
Autumn is when we take our annual trip to the Rockies. We went last week and had the first cold weather of the season. The wind was howling on one of our hikes, and we had to find a rock shelter to sit behind and eat our lunch. As soon as we stepped out from behind our shelter, though, the wind was at full force again. It calmed down a bit after lunch, but it was still cold. The streams were covered in a skin of ice, with water flowing underneath them. The water made fascinating sculptures of the vegetation it flowed past, frozen tree branches dripping melted ice back into the stream.
One of the glaciers we visited had retreated significantly since last year. The moraines around it had downwasted, likely as their ice cores melted. The proglacial zone was also higher, as burps of sediment had been released from beneath the glacier during summer melt events, depositing silt across the floodplain. It was amazing to see, and also made it easier to climb down to the proglacial zone from the surrounding moraines. We discovered basal ice at the margin of the glacier, melting in slow drops into the proglacial stream, but we had to walk pretty far to reach the glacier edge. I wonder when it will finally disappear—this time we saw what looked like a spot where ice had fallen off the top right side of the glacier and exposed bedrock. That will just speed up melting, as the bedrock will get warm in the summer sun and radiate that heat to the exposed glacier. I wonder what we’ll see if we go back next year.
Autumn is here in so many ways: the colours, the humidity, the cool weather, the annual trek to the Rockies. I, too, feel like I’m winding down. But there are too many things needing my attention, when I am trying to get into the rhythm of autumn and prepare for winter. Next week we may go camping and I’m looking forward to that. I’m also meeting up with my writing friends from our Slack group at the end of the month, and am excited to see them all again. We’ll have a good time, though I’ll probably have to sleep for a week once I get home.
Autumn is a time for reflection, for rethinking our place in life. It’s a time to watch the season slide into winter. It’s time to start new, indoor projects, or just pick up the ones we left off before summer came.
I love autumn for all of these reasons. How do you feel about it?
