The autumn wind, comes blowin’ in

Autumn winds — Winds of seasonal change blow across these ancient hills, lifting dry leaves from their now sapless branches, momentarily making a swirling leaf-devil, before depositing skittering multicolored little beauties onto bench, window-sill and doorway. Late Fall has come to our corner of the Catskills. 

This wind can be a cold blast from the north or its warmer, southern-born cousin. It can pierce hastily-donned, long-misplaced warm clothing or it can gently caress the skin with its reminder of lost summer warmth. The winds of Fall have their own unique character, whether from the north or from the south. Either way they serve to remind us that much colder times are just around the corner. 

There is no season that quite compares to a northeast autumn, for not only do we have an incredible full-spectrum, multihued leafy pageant to gape at, all of us oohing and aahing as if we had never seen it before (and, in truth, each Fall is unique and amazing in its own right). Sometimes Mother Earth cooperates and warms October up for us, like she did this year. It seemed like we were living in a wonderful fantasy-land (we do), a bright colorful world that is also comfy and warm, allowing us to walk in the woods in shorts, while wading through piles of dried leaves — all with the extra advantage of no black-flies or mosquitos! 

The only insect-life to speak of now are the last few butterflies — Cabbage Whites mostly, a couple of stray bees, Ladybugs, lots of Stinkbugs, as well as crickets and the very last few Katydids, not giving up and being very persistent, almost in a desultory fashion,like the ultimate child that will not go to bed. 

The last of the Green Darner dragonflies have finally departed south. Yes, we’ll still find an ant or two under rocks and an impending warm-spell (even just one day) will bring out more stubborn insects, happily fooled by the brief seeming return of summer. Of course, this occasion will make our wintering small-birds — bluejays, cardinals, chickadees, juncos, sparrows, wrens very happy to have more to feast upon, allowing them to put off their winter diet of berries and seeds. 

The Fall forest

That wind I mentioned before, as it races through the trees, stripping them bare of this year’s leafy bounty, is helping the trees, or, perhaps over untold millennia the forest has learned to adapt to having the wind help them shed their dried parts, blowing them to the forest-floor, where first the leaves protect the roots from the worst of winter’s cold, then they become another layer of soil for the following season. Pretty darn smart, I’d say. Also, very egalitarian, in that you’ll notice that a beech probably doesn’t care if maple leaves help mulch its roots, nor does the oak-tree reject the ash-leaf. I wonder, though, if maybe the hardwoods are not happy to have the more acidic needles of cedar, hemlock and white pine bedding over their rootlets. And keep in mind how important the roots are, preserving the trees vital sap safely underground for the duration of winter. Because the sap is no longer in the branches this allows their limbs to survive the coldest time, when any sap left in a branch or twig would freeze, causing it to split and probably die off, its pith exposed. Another brilliant (in more ways than one) aspect of this is that the branches are much more flexible without their sap, allowing them to bend and bow with the onslaught of the fierce winter winds yet to come. Luckily, for now, we only have the gentle fall breeze to bounce around this year’s dried crop, scraping along the ground, catching on stick or stone. Or was that the Little People, as the traditional New Year (All Hallows Eve, Samhain) is upon us and the Gate Between The Worlds opens ever-so-gradually, just a crack and just enough for visitors? Hmm. 

Thank you all for accompanying me on this incredible journey through the seasons here in Waghkonk, “Land of Waterfalls Under the Sacred Mountain” (one interpretation, anyway, but I think it fits).