Tag: weather

Autumn Wind

K. Schall DeYong

It’s late October, and the leaves are finally changing with the weather. Brilliant collages of yellows, browns, and reds begin to mask the dull pavement as the wind blows them off of their branches.

These and the other ashes of autumn blow on the perpetual wind.  This is ankle-twisting season: a time of year to find yourself looking up at the color of the leaves while your feet narrowly miss rolling over the trees’ debris. Broken twigs, nuts, and the dust of crumbling leaves skip down the street like a rock across a river. Branches and beds of pine needles collect on the shoulder of the road. Acorns tumble down from high branches and hit the ground with a pop.

These are the blustery days of autumn. The wind won’t be stopped now. It’s begun its mission: to usher out fall and invite winter to stay. It’s slow work, but it works every year; in time, the autumn wind will blast the trees bare and carry the cold in with it.

The Fog

K. Schall DeYong

The nights grow colder and longer, but the daytime remains warm. This is the secret recipe for some autumn magic. When the temperatures drop below the dew point, the air must let go of some of its water vapor, and so it rises: the fog.

Mornings in the city, mist rises from the ground everywhere. Out from the wet heaps of mulch, freshly mounded for winter; out from the grasses that glow golden in the autumn sunlight; out from the sewers that steam and belch up the river that runs beneath the streets.

And at nighttime in the country, down in Patterson, Missouri, where Big Creek runs through Sam A. Baker State Park, on these first cold nights of the year there’s a scene that brings chills to your skin. The fog swirls over the dark water and climbs upward, thick and slow, glowing white in the light of the bright moon. Even when the moon is full, you can’t see five feet ahead, and a flashlight can’t cut through the fog either. There, you may stand in silence. Your breath appears in the air for the first time this season as you listen to the river and stare at the dark silhouettes of the trees, still against the glowing mist.

Autumn Arrives

K. Schall DeYong

Fall was running late this year in Missouri. But it’s here now, at long last, and with it comes the brief chance to enjoy Midwestern weather at its finest.

The next question is when we can expect to see the fall foliage start to turn. The deep green of summer faded from the leaves weeks ago, but the yellow, orange, and red remain elusive. You might have noticed that the leaves started falling in September, but the changing season isn’t to blame for that–the trees are under considerable stress this year. The long, wet spring meant that they produced an unusually large number of leaves, leading to an especially green spring of fully flushed crowns. But the end of summer was exceptionally dry, so the trees didn’t have enough water to support that giant leaf crop. That’s why the sidewalks are full of dry, brown leaves–the trees just couldn’t keep up.
Now, the color will wait for consistent cool temperatures and a little more rain before it’s ready to put on its show. Most are predicting that fall color will come a little late this year–as late as the second week of November. But with nearly-freezing temperatures predicted for this weekend, it’s hard to say what will happen–if it gets too cold too quick, it’s possible that the leaves will drop before they have the chance to turn much.
Color or no color, this weather won’t stick around long. Before we know it, we’ll be grumbling around in puffy coats and cursing the long, dark nights. In the meantime, may every neighbor take a walk through their neighborhood, take a trip to the pumpkin patch, or just sit on the porch for the last few weeks of sunshine. Autumn has arrived.

The Tune Changes

K. Schall DeYong

The heat pushes on for now, but the autumn equinox has just passed, and the public is indignant about the summer hanging on. Boots and sweaters creep out of closets as people choose to sweat rather than miss the chance to whip out their fall wardrobe. The orange-filled Oreos are on the shelves, the mums are being planted, and the harvest festivals will go on.

Right now, the signs of summer and fall are neck and neck. But soon the scales will tip. The cicadas, whose whine was so deafening a month ago, have quieted down to nearly nothing, and though the still-green trees and the hot days would seem to say that fall is still far off, there is evidence of autumn’s arrival in the changing songs.

The sound of crows cawing is a familiar sound on a misty fall morning. But the crows have been here all year long; they don’t migrate as regularly as other birds. Their cawing comes from a change in behavior: during the summer, crows keep to themselves, spending the night in their own territories. In autumn, they gather together in large groups, flapping, bouncing, and socializing. Although crows make a number of different sounds, they stick to their distinctive caw at this time of year. All these noisy parties make them suddenly conspicuous. The rise of their morning racket reminds you that Halloween is on the way.

The crickets, too, have risen in their chorus, and their peaceful noise brings a calmness to the morning, evening, and night. Their chirps slow and quicken as the temperature changes, so listen for their speed to relax as autumn rolls in. For them, it is mating season, so their songs will ring out from now until the first hard frost. Until then, their peaceful song fills the air as the sun starts setting sooner and the world begins to slow down.

Harvest Moon

K. Schall DeYong

Last Friday was the harvest moon. Garden-growers have been harvesting all summer: lettuce when the nights were still cool, then kale, then tomatoes and peppers, then squash and figs and apples–it’s just now that the ripening seems to be most rapid.

Summer is a time of slow and steady growth, and right at its very end comes the bounty. Many folks think of harvest as a word synonymous with autumn, but really it’s a time that bridges summer and fall. Go to any orchard and they’ll tell you that a lot of people don’t show up for apple picking until October–they wait ’til the leaves have changed and the days have a chill because they think of apple picking as a fall time activity. By the time they get there, the season has passed, and the apples are all overripe and picked over.

Now’s the time for apple-picking, and it’s a long-running tradition here in Missouri. Eckert’s has been in the same family for 7 generations. Centennial Farms has been in operation since 1821–so long ago that President James Monroe signed the document that granted its founder his land–and it’s now been in the same family since 1854. Being born into a family like that must be something like being born a royal–like it or not, one of the siblings is going to have to grow up to take over the throne and run the apple kingdom.

Modern life has made harvesting into a leisurely day-trip activity, but we owe our fall fun to the farmers who’ve been working to keep it alive and well all summer. Our apples and pumpkins and peach preserves are the product of a spring’s worth of preparation and a summer’s worth of upkeep. In these last few days before autumn, we fill up our bags and collect summer’s leftovers.

Dominoes

K. Schall DeYong

All the time, nature is working, and summer is the culmination of its work. Autumn is a time of preparation. Winter is for saving energy. Spring is for birth and for growth. Summer is what it’s all for–a time to live.

It’s September now, and Labor Day has passed, so the secret is out: summer is beginning to end. From here on out it’s the falling of the dominoes. At the end of summer, a whole year’s growth begins to fade away into next year’s generation. This time of year is the end of that great cycle. Now we are plunging toward fall, and winter in turn, and back toward spring and then summer again.

With this end comes a deep and unshakable sense of sadness. It becomes easy to slip into a nostalgic and wistful mood. It must be partly the fault of the ghost of our childhood brain. Fall means the return to school, and thus to responsibility. An undeniable slowing down follows the end of summer vacation, even for those who didn’t have one. There are fewer festivals, no more families visiting the botanical garden in the middle of a Tuesday morning, a dwindling number of nighttime activities as the twilight starts to move in earlier. All season long the city has been reeling from a feverish thirst for summer fun. And now, as the trees stop producing leaves and begin to drop them, we slow down and start getting reflective.

Something about this time of year is inherently bittersweet. Soon the air will be crisp and the nights will be cool and the days will be warm instead of hot. We know that summer is ending, but on its tail comes autumn, bearing its own gifts.

Deafening August

K. Schall DeYong

Mid-August.  So it’s back-to-school and pools closing and cinnamon brooms appearing at the grocery stores. We adjust our consumables to match the false ending that the beginning of the school year creates. But summer is a long ways from over. The constant hum of bugs will tell you that much—crickets in the morning, cicadas in the evening, katydids in the night. And this week will see some of the season’s most hot and humid days yet.

August is the month that demands to be seen. It’s wet and hot and loud; like a big fat final har-umph before abundant summer starts to give in to tempered autumn. Here in St. Louis, August is so humid that tropical plants thrive on patios and at the Botanical Garden. Anyone who spends time outside knows that autumn is still a distant thought in the mind of the natural world. Nobody can smell it coming on the wind just yet—we must stand in the smell of our own sweat and bugspray until deafening August has had its say.

Harvesting Honey

K. Schall DeYong

In the world of beekeeping, late July and early August is harvest season. Spring and summertime means hard work for honeybees, just as it does for farmers. Bees depend on pollen for a food source, and they won’t leave the hive once the temperature drops below 40 degrees. That means they have to produce like crazy all summer long to make sure the hive has enough food to survive the winter.

So the bees process some of their pollen to make the nectar they eat, and for some of it they create little wax caps so they can save it for later. Over time, this capped nectar loses some of its moisture. And that’s when it becomes sweet, thick, golden honey.

They depend on that honey as a source of food throughout the winter, so you would think it would harm them when we harvest it. But the bees produce a huge amount of extra. Even a modest hive will produce 30 pounds of honey or more. The bees don’t set a certain quantity and then stop when they reach it. They just push forward, full speed ahead, until the last flower has died and they can push no more. Beekeepers can calculate how much honey their hive will need to survive the winter and harvest the excess with that in mind. Even if the worst does happen, and they notice that the bees are running low on their stores, they can feed sugar water to the hive to help supplement the honey.

To harvest honey, the bees must first be encouraged to leave the super, which is the section of the hive where their extra food supply is stored. Different methods can be used to get the bees to migrate to different parts of the hive. Bees have a powerful sense of smell, so the easiest way to get them to leave is to fill the super with a scent they don’t like, like smoke or almond extract. Then the frames are inspected to pick the best candidates for harvest. For the bees’ sake, the friendliest way to get to the honey is just to remove the caps. If only the caps are removed, the bees won’t have to rebuild the whole honeycomb structure when they get their frames back. Lastly, the frames have to be spun at a high speed to get the honey to run out, and as soon as it’s run through a simple mesh filter, it’s ready to sell, just the way it is.

Beekeeping has been going on for a very long time. We have images of humans collecting honey from as long as 10,000 years ago. It’s not hard to believe, though. Can you imagine what a discovery it was to stumble upon rich, sweet, liquid gold? Anyone would put up with a few stings to get their hands on that.

Wildflowers Dominate

K. Schall DeYong

This kind of heat isn’t friendly to fragile beauty. Mild weather flowers and cool weather crops have burnt brown in the sun. A humid evening at a summer wedding has the groomsmen itching in their suits and the bridesmaids sweating off their makeup. It’s a hard thing to look shipshape in late July.

But not all living things are deterred by this weather. At this time of year, the wildflowers thrive. Primrose, cardinal flower, and columbine endure in rocky glades and creek beds. Vibrant butterfly weed and blazing star dominate the prairies. The coneflowers are particularly radiant, shooting up past the sky-high grass to get their daily dose of sun.

These flowers are a far cry from a delicate iris or a fragrant rose. They’re sometimes scraggly, often unkempt. But they require no attention and get on just fine without us. In midsummer, they overtake our wild landscapes. They know summer is no time for measured elegance. It is for growth, for life, for movement, for color. A time to leave the air conditioning behind and to jump in the pool, sweat in the sun, and, when the night comes down, to lay down expended in the dew-soaked grass.

Summer’s Smells

K. Schall DeYong

Each season has its own scent, but midsummer must be the time of year when the smells are the strongest in the city. On a Saturday morning, cut grass tickles your nose when the neighbor’s lawnmower hums you awake. On a weekday morning, when the trash pickup comes, the whole neighborhood stinks with the rotten smell of sun-cooked garbage. The warm smell of wet pavement hangs around for your day at the zoo, in the amusement park, on the blacktop at summer school. A fresh sweat follows you with every outdoor hour. The smell of charcoal brings the evening in as you drive home through the neighborhoods. Bug spray and citronella are threaded into a tiki-torch-lit twilight.

Spring’s perfume is delicate; autumn’s fresh; winter’s subtle. But summer demands attention. In the city, summer’s aroma is made by humans. Summer smells like us because it is the season we spend outside. What would summer be without cut grass, bug spray, sunscreen?

Have you ever wandered far off the path in Forest Park and smelled the hot grass sweetened by the sweltering sun? Or walked through the Botanical Garden on a day so hot that you could smell the lavender simmering in the heat? These are the smells of summer that exist with or without us, riding on the breeze even when there’s not a nose in sight to sniff the air.