Are you following Kerry at Love Those Hands at Home?
If not, you won’t want to miss her sumptuous love letter to Autumn. Here’s an excerpt
Autumn seduces me, energizes me, makes me feel alive. My blood sings and fizzes like champagne when autumn comes to me. – KerryCan
You can read her entire post here.
It’s a gorgeous piece of writing, and one that perfectly captures my feelings of the approaching season.
Even in California with our subtle, seasonal changes, the arrival of autumn is unmistakable. Breezes finally blow through the valley, chasing away the ugly smog. The last of the pumpkin vines shrivel and die, but not before gifting us their wonderful fruit.
Dusk settles in earlier, and for this fair-skinned gardener, working longer hours outdoors is no longer unthinkable.
I cleared out the back corner of the garden, pruning away overhanging limbs, dead leaves and the growing layer of pine needles. Look at this pile?
Pile of pine needles, dead leaves and tree pruning. (Slinky’s tiny feet in the background)
After: I don’t have a good before, but you saw the pile (Slinky’s ears in the lower corner)
Ironically, the pumpkins I planted in May were a complete fizzle, while the self seeded (squirrel-planted) vines were a hit. One of those vines produced four tall, hefty carving pumpkins, ready for our resident, master carver (Mike).
A second vine produced one basketball sized pumpkin, took a rest, then pumped out a second pumpkin, turning a lovely shade of orange.
A third vine tip-toed up on us, producing a perfect little pumpkin the size of a cherry tomato. Then in the dead of night a critter ate it for supper. Boo-hoo! But wait…another pumpkin eventually took its place and it too is turning orange.
“Under Armour” Pumpkin
Tiny pumpkin, big fortress
Summer is far from over. Even when the autumnal equinox rolls around, we’re still in for a few more heatwaves. That said, the California Gray squirrels have stepped up their game, knowing intuitively what lies ahead. Indoors, Slinky is getting a head start on snuggle weather. She’s resting in my lap on a soft blanket, her coat still shiny on her diminished frame.
Slinky Malinki
There’s an interesting conversation going on in the comment thread of Kerry’s post on the origins of the use of the word “fall” vs “autumn”. Here’s what I learned:
Fall and autumn are both accepted and widely used terms for the season that comes between summer and winter. Some who consider British English the only true English regard fall as an American barbarism, but this attitude is not well founded. Fall is in fact an old term for the season, originating in English in the 16th century or earlier. It was originally short for fall of the year or fall of the leaf, but it commonly took the one-word form by the 17th century, long before the development of American English. So while the term is now widely used in the U.S., it is not exclusively American, nor is it American in origin. – Source: Grammarist
I love learning the origin of a word. While I know my Southern Hemisphere friends are looking forward to fall, how about the rest of you? Are you ready to say goodbye to summer and to welcome the ‘fall of the year’?
Gardening Nirvana 