Creeping Autumn

On our morning walks, there are clear signals that seasonal changes are in the air. The persistent strands of Virginia creeper wrapping old wooden fences and stone walls and draping themselves around trees and shrubs were green a few days ago, and this morning many look more like Yuletide (or Christmas) paper, red and green and silvery in the early light. Where their supporting masonry gets direct sunlight during the day and retains a little heat at night, the vines are keeping their green a little longer, but they too are thinking about changing their colors.

Oak leaves are lightly touched with the splendid rosy bronze tint they wear in late September and early October before falling to earth, and beech leaves are already edged in coppery red and cognac. Leaf by leaf and branch by branch, maple trees in the eastern Ontario highlands are turning red.

One of my forestry references identifies our native beeches as just "common beeches", but to my mind, there is nothing common about the beech sisters in the village with their majestic height, silvery bark, dense foliage and rounded crowns. They are magnificent, and that is that.

Part of me wants to dance about and applaud the cooler temperatures and burnished, glorious colors coming into their own. Another part of me is dismayed at the prospect of cold weather, short days and long nights, of frost and an early autumn this time around. Fall should not arrive until early October, and then it ought to hang about until at least the end of November. 

Please Mama, not yet........ Gift us with several more weeks of sun and warmth and gentle breezes, no ingathering and Arctic nights for a while longer.