Fall

Today, November 5, is the halfway point of astronomical fall.  Astronomical fall is the time from the Autumnal Equinox to the day before the Winter Solstice.  Meteorological fall consists of the months of September, October, and November.  As we sit 45 days into the fall season we have celebrated All Hallows Eve (Halloween), All Saints Day, and All Souls Day and we look forward to the Thanksgiving feast, which this year falls on November 23.

Holy Hill, October 20, 2017

Fall is the time of year when temperatures begin to cool (or fall), when leaves turn colors and give a short but beautiful display before they fall.  It is a time of harvesting the last fruits and vegetables.  Fall, however, is a word which often has negative connotations.  Using Merriam Webster dictionary on-line let me provide just a few:

1.       To descend freely by the force of gravity

2.       To become lower in degree or level

3.       To leave an erect position suddenly and  unintentionally.

2015 photo of Autumn Purple Ash in my front yard

I know many persons for whom fall is their favorite season.  Perhaps we should use autumn as the descriptor since it lacks much of the negative connotation of fall.  This year it seems that we skipped the best parts of fall, those sunny days with high temperatures in the 50’s to lower 60’s.  Sweatshirt and football weather.  We went from highs in the 70’s to highs in the 30’s or 40’s.  Such is the variation of a transitional season in the Midwest. The long-range forecast in the Madison, WI area for the week have lows as cold as 23 degrees, and after today the highest temperature is to be about 43 degrees.  As of today, normal temperatures are 51/33.  We are now paying for a warm early fall.

2015 pile of raked leaves

Yet, besides the normal temperatures and colors of leaves we see other positive attributes, and the reasons why many seem to view it as their favorite season:  there is hot apple cider, pumpkin pie, Thanksgiving, pumpkin spice which seems in almost everything now-a-days, flannel sheets and down comforters, pumpkin pie, wool and flannel clothing.  Oh, and there is also, in order to mention a third time--pumpkin pie. One does not live if they do not like homemade pumpkin pie, especially one with my wife's homemade crust.  Fall includes a decrease in daylight hours.  However, given the position of Madison, WI in the northern latitudes our day light hours will remain at 9 hours from Dec 19 through Dec 27.  Fall also provides some rare treats.  For example, one may be lucky to encounter a few nice cool, clear, crisp mornings as the sun peaks over the horizon providing a morning to raise your spirits and brighten your outlook for the day.  Fall is also a time of final chores.  It involves cleaning up flower and garden beds, putting away flower pots, raking leaves, mulching flower beds, unhooking hoses, and cleaning leaves out of the gutters. 

Early fall produce

A couple weeks ago it was a nice warm fall day and I left work early to complete some yard work.  It was a busy few hours before my spouse arrived home.  When she arrived home she asked what I had done.  I started the list: I picked up leaves in the front and side of the house, mowed the lawn, cleaned out the front gutters, worked in the garden, and repaired the raised vegetable bed.  I was hoping her attention would be elsewhere and she would miss one item in the list, but I was wrong.  The item in the list that quickly caught her attention caused her to get become quite upset and mad for doing one particular chore.  “You got up on the roof to clean the gutters?” was her question to which I said, “Well, yes.”  To say I got the third degree from the onslaught verbal barrage would be an understatement.  Yes, she was madder than when I put my cold hands on her warm face.  Her verbal barrage was multi-faceted.  It pulled at the heart strings—“Don’t you care about how I would feel to come home and find you dead or severely injured from falling off the roof!” It was logical: “What would you do if you had fallen off the roof and were severely injured?” Yet, it also contained threats, such as: “How would you feel if I went up on the roof?” I take it she does not want me on the roof.

Corn Maze, another benefit of fall

A week later, was our 27^th wedding anniversary, and to celebrate we went to see a movie, our first movie in a theater since watching “Concussion.”  The movie, “Only the Brave” followed the Granite Mountain Hotshots from a local trainee crew to a certified Hotshot crew, and concluded with the Yarnell, AZ fire in which 19 of the 20 members perished.  (The one who survived was a lookout watching the fire movement and tracing weather patterns one-half mile away from where the main crew was located.)  At the end of the movie the relatives and loved ones of the crew are gathered in the local school.  Details were not being released to the assembled family members pending arrival of grief counselors.  Word had spread of one survivor, but at this point no one knew who it was.  The one survivor, going against advice of the leader of a federal hot shot crew, decided to go to the school.  As he walked into the school the hopes of family members of nineteen other men disappeared.  Those family members had one string of hope, against all odds, that their husband, father, son or brother would be the one to be alive.  In the instant they saw the surviving crew member their hope was instantly replaced by cries and anguish for the loss of  man they would no longer embrace.  Not quite the way to find out about the death of your husband, father, brother or son.  While, as my wife knows, my middle name is “Careful”, accidents do occur. Such as falling off a roof.    

Lapham Peak Unit of Southern Kettle Moraine State Forest
October 20, 2017

Hopefully fall will not entail the third of the three above definitions, for anyone at anytime. Autumn can bring a series of different events and experiences.  It brings recognition of those who have gone before us (All Saints Day and All Souls Day), we give thanks for blessings bestowed through the unique American holiday--Thanksgiving;  yet, as the days continue to shorten we look forward to the future.   As we make our way through fall before the end of the season I may once again be on the roof to make on final cleaning of the front gutters before winter sets in, but this time I should make sure my wife is home.

 Photos by author