Turning over the Turning of the Earthwheel

In her Beachtreasure blog (www.beachtreasure.blogspot.com) Laume was talking about changes in her family, in the seasons, and the restless wind blowing through her spirit lately. Wow. Yes, at the risk of adding a meme here, I've had that restlessness in my head too, but tinged with sadness. It is always so hard to lose the daylight, and where once it was light, or at least dusky until almost 9 p.m. it is now dusking up around 7 p.m. and full dark between 730 and 740 or so. And the sun sets so much more south of where it did just a few months ago. In midsummer it beams it's last long rays from the center of my backyard, through the trees in my neighbors yard as it slowly slips past the horizon. Now it is setting behind another neighbors house. By midfall it will begin setting at the house 3 doors down from there and the last sun I see in winter is when it is perched on their roof, before it falls off and my yard darkens, between 330 and 4 p.m.

I'm not trying to give a lesson here, just noting that I'm working out in my head what has been, and what is coming.

It has been so cold here in New England this week that 1) I felt guilty for everyone else in the US that was roasting in 100 degree heat and 2) almost needing to turn the heat on. Okay, I'll admit it. I *did* turn the heat on, Wednesday morning. It was 52 degrees in my living room and all of us were shivering. Since it had been in the 40's at night all week, we needed a break from shivering! Um, isn't it still AUGUST we were all saying to anyone we met. Out came long jeans, sweatshirts, shirt jackets from our emergency camping stash. Elisabeth got some new polarfleece pants and shirts on clearance from LL Bean and they came in Tuesday and she wore them all week.

Today is Friday. It hit 90 humid degrees today, after being just about 70 yesterday. Tomorrow it could be near to 100. Go figure! Of couse I need to finish canning my peaches tomorrow....

And finally, when I took Rob to Princeton for a homeschool hike (a small town south of here, where there is an Audubon sanctuary we frequent), which is about 500 or so feet higher in elevation...and there were trees everywhere just "frosted"with color. Reds, a bit of yellow, a wee slice of orange...nearly every tree had at least a few colors near the top or a side branch...we've had a few tree' s locally begin to show early color, but this...this is crazy! We hit peak color around Columbus Day in October...but perhaps since our weather the last 2 weeks have been more October than August....perhaps we're finally in for a snowy winter!

So although the wheel turning on it's Autumnal axis is rather sad, as I so hate for Summer to go, there is much to look forward to, too. I'm reconciling myself to the shorter days, the cooler nights, and to accepting the beauty, the splendour of brilliant leaves against that painfully blue blue sky of Autumn, and the promise of winter snow.