TheBanyanTree: The Autumnal Equinox

[Margaret R. Kramer]

Because of global warming, the autumnal equinox will not feel very autumnal.
Highs today in Minnesota are expected to be in the 80s with a stiff breeze.
Well, our windows will be open to catch perhaps one of the last summer-like
days of 2007.

We haven’t had a frost yet.  My indoor plants are still sunning their leaves
outside.  This will be the first September ever in my lifetime that I’ve
been able to leave my indoor plants outside throughout the month of
September.  Usually by now, we’ve had a couple of chilly nights.  There are
no chilly nights in sight for the upcoming week.  I’m sure the plants don’t
mind spending a few extra days posing for the sun.

Our garden has gone crazy.  It’s like the plant life knows that their days
are numbered.  The roses are blooming.  The tomatoes are growing and
ripening.  The peppers keep getting greener and heavier.  Our flowers are
giving us a fall ballet of color.

We’ve had tons of rain in September so the grass is a deep green again and
GROWING.  Usually by now the grass has stopped growing and I don’t have to
mow.  But my lawnmower comes out of the garage every Saturday lately to trim
back the grass.

We’re getting spits of autumn color here and there.  The experts are
predicting beautiful color this year because of the drought earlier this
summer.  There isn’t much color in my immediate neighborhood yet, but when I
was driving out to the suburbs to work yesterday, the sumac is turning a
bright red, and the weeds along the freeway are becoming a lustrous gold.

Sometime soon it will get cold.  Then I’ll bring in the plants.  I’ll cut
back the tomato stalks.  I’ll cover up the roses.  Ray will wander into the
garage and winterize the lawnmower and tune up the snowblower.  The grass
will stop growing.  And the leaves in the city will finally put on their
autumn finery and shortly thereafter shed their colorful clothes for the
browns and blacks of winter.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net
margaret.kramer at polarispublications.com

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can
steal.
~Author Unknown