The Peak

Oct 12, 2022

It is an amazing scene.  The right amount of rain and summer sun has created the vast yellows and deep reds of Fall.  That each day has lately been relatively warm and sunny has lent to the overall sheer artistry that is Nature herself.   Maples, Oaks, Sumac, Virginia Creeper, Cottonwood all turning hues as the slowly tilting earth steers our side of the planet back to Winter.  

It is hard to ignore, much less feel the excitement, the preparation for the coming of the cold.  On my walks around Warren Park, the squirrels work overtime, running with acorns in their mouths.  They seek various places to stash their booty, coming to claim it when the snow settles. Even the bumblebees still dart to the flowers that remain.  Purple Echinacea, Clover and Ironweed all beckon to them.  In the morning I will find a bee numbed to immobility by the night's cold on the flower itself, waiting for the sun to warm them to commence the harvest once more. 

Not all trees turn at once.  Some are defiant, holding onto their green, emerald mantles.  Others give up quite easily, and each small breeze sees them shedding their leaves as one discards dirty clothes after a long day.  They are resigned to the arrival of Winter, and they are ready for it to arrive. 

The prairie grasses and plants also change.  The Big Bluestem and Little Bluestem turn blood red.  Come the snow, they will look beautiful as they stretch up over the drifts.  The Cup Plant and False Indigo start to wither and make no pretense that they are going away.  I will leave them be for the cold months, so birds can peck away at what few seeds there may be and shelter in the dried leaves. 

A walk along Lake Michigan and its azure waters only heightens the beauty.  The beach grass, yellowed, waves above the sand.  The waves are small, calm and all is a gentle, floating, graceful movement of swirling leaves, blue water and even bluer sky.  It is a dreamscape, a lulling of the senses, just that last bit of inspirational fat before the arrival of famine. 

We have just a few precious more weeks of the peak color season here.  Soon all the trees, even the stubborn ones will stand stark and still.  The oak will have a few brown leaves that flutter like a mournful reminder.  “Do you remember Summer?” they sigh as we wait our turn on the sledding hill. 

November will arrive. She will take to the Lake as her domain, whipping the waves into a crashing, brown, turbid frenzy as she soaks us with a bone-chilling cold rain.  The dancing leaves of October will be wet, corpse-like piles of rotting brown.  All will kneel before the Hag of Hoarfrost.  Her initial anger cools with earth itself and those first flakes of snow will arrive, like curious visitors from another world. 

That will come soon. But for now, the color and excitement are here.  The splashes of yellow, orange and ochre mix and mingle in their own celebration of Autumn, a heady mead, and I revel in the indulgence.


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