It seems as if fall just sneaks up on me over the past few years. Once, it meant back to school, first as student, then parent, then teacher. But it always seemed as if those first few weeks were hot before a gradual cooldown.
Not so much these days. Now it seems like one day it’s hot, dusty, and dry…the next overcast with wet, followed by cooler weather and a certain light in the sky even when it’s a bright blue heartbreaking September day (September days without contrails in the sky bring back certain memories, alas).
For the past few years, fall means transitioning from late afternoon/early evening horseback rides to avoid the heat to midday rides to beat the sunset. I made that shift this week, because earlier it was getting into that hot afternoon mode, and I do not do well with heat. Too many years of pushing physical activity through hot weather have taken a toll, along with aging, and I can’t take the heat as well anymore. But as we approach the equinox, especially with mountains to the west and south, sunset ends up coming earlier and earlier. One week it’s too late to be out with the horses at eight. Then seven-thirty, and now it’s almost that way at six. Soon enough I’ll be getting up, eating breakfast, then riding in late morning because winter sunset comes around two p.m. at the ranch where the horses spend their winter. But that’s just a handful of weeks for that timing, just like it is for those long exquisite evenings where I can be out riding safely until eight or eight-thirty.
Other things mark fall. It used to be hunting season, which meant a chance to get away from the city and out into the woods for a short camping expedition. We don’t hunt anymore simply because it’s too much work. After finding the deer that’s legal to shoot and actually shooting them, then it’s skinning and gutting to get the carcass cooled quickly. Then hanging it in a rented cooler space to age before the butchering job–and with deer, anyway, that takes time because we want to get as much fat out of the meat as possible. Fat carries the gamey taste. I like eating well-handled venison, but too many people don’t take the time to treat it properly–therefore the gamey taste that many people associate with wild meat.
I used to do more canning, and jam making. These days, not so much. We don’t eat that much jam and there are fewer friends to give it to these days. I never got as hard core into food preserving as my mother did, with the quarts and quarts of peaches, pears, and assorted vegetables that required firing up the pressure canner on a hot day. That’s all right because this new stove of ours is cranky about a water bath canner, much less a pressure canner. Fancy sensors that clearly aren’t designed for a preserving household.
Fall also means chanterelle mushrooms. We don’t always manage to get to the Coast to visit the friend who has his own secret location for mushrooming, but this year we did and found a plentiful batch. We dried them and will be eating them this winter.
This fall, too, is a woodcutting fall. Springtime had issues and we couldn’t get out to cut wood. But the issues are gone this fall, so we’re out to cut wood for most likely next year–we like to carry over a few cords so that when there’s a situation like last spring, we have a stash on top of buying wood. Which can have its own issues, depending on who’s cutting the wood and how precise they are with meeting our preferred stove size. Woodcutting is an excuse to get out in the woods and get some exercise–husband cutting, me loading the truck. But we can see cool stuff–watch the first dustings of snow on the mountains, spot deer and elk, see a turkey or two, sometimes (rarely) a bear. Plus the various birds who are passing through on their migrations. There’s always something interesting to observe.
Flies are still bothering the horses, but not like before. I pulled the fly masks because they were collecting stick-tights, more so than the horses’ forelocks do without the masks. The flies are still bothersome on hot days but not so much as they were a few weeks ago. They’re shedding out their summer coats as the fall and then the winter coats come in. This year Marker is growing a heavy coat, unlike last year before his first winter here. Mocha did the same thing during her first year of mountain life. Now she looks like a Shetland pony in the winter. I don’t think his coat will be that heavy, but one never knows.
We don’t do a big garden–just a small area in the sunny front yard–but it’s time to bring in some of the plants and harvest others. Instead of leaves we rake pine needles, and watch for migrant birds. Right now the white-crowned sparrows are showing up at the feeding ground, along with a young Cooper’s hawk who has discovered that the feeder works for hunting birds.
The butterflies are still going strong. I rode by a ditch today where lots of Painted Lady butterflies were hanging out–must have been a mineral in the mud because they were definitely interested in that. I think I saw around fifty of them. But there’s also the little yellow butterflies, as well as a black and red one that I don’t know the name of. Then there’s the last hurrah of praying mantises flying about. They’re about three inches long by now and brown. I know they were around in Portland, but I’ve never seen so many or mantises the size of these except here.
Sliding into fall. I still have plants to bring in, a couple of which need to be repotted. We brought the Lemon Drop peppers inside today, because temps are dropping into the thirties at night. Hopefully we’ll harvest enough before the pollen gets too much to bear–I end up pollinating the peppers by hand over the winter using a Q-tip, but our last batch had to be abandoned because it was too much pollen for the spouse’s allergies.
The cool as sunset approaches reminds me that winter is on its way. A relief after the hot summer. Oh, I know that soon enough I’ll be tired of the hassles of winter, just like I am the hassles of summer. But I’m ready for cold, and snow.
Fall is here.
