Autumnal

As much as I love fall, it does bring with it that sense that it's all downhill from here. As a season, it's glorious and dramatic but all too short. You wait impatiently for the peak leaf color ... waiting, waiting, waiting ... until one day you realize that it's past, most of the leaves are falling, and you won't be seeing leaves for SIX MONTHS. Then you think about how much that sucks, put on comfy pants, and go eat something chocolate. Really? Just me? Huh.

This is a typical Maine fall morning. Daddy Shortbread has trouble getting up without the sun to prod him out of bed. I know this because every single morning from mid-September until April, the alarm clock goes off and he snarls, ""I hate getting up when it's dark outside." And then he does a performance piece called Hugely Exaggerated Sighing and Moaning While Stomping to the Bathroom. You should see it sometime.
The fog is especially thick along the creekbed and down by the river. It will burn off by mid-morning and give way to such warm, blue-skied afternoons that you don't even need a jacket.

These foggy mornings are both eerie and cozy. I like the contrast of the bright flowers enshrouded by mist. Even though the gardens are going by at this point in the season, I enjoy them all the more because I know that any morning now I'll wake up and find wilted black flowers dangling from frost-frozed stems. And let me tell you, that SUCKS. Within two weeks, I'll be paging through seed catalogs and planning next year's gardens.
The wild New England asters in my backyard and along the roadsides will persist for a while still. I've been seeing a lot of Monarch butterflies around them, fueling up on them for their migration to Mexico this week.

I'd kind of like to fly down to Mexico, too, and catch just a few more days of summer. As long as I'm not required to, you know, wear a bathing suit in public.