A farewell and a welcome

I have just lit a fire to honor the end of a lovely summer and to welcome the new autumn, which will officially begin at 10:21 tomorrow morning. This is always a melancholy moment, a mixture of sweet remembrance of warm days and anticipation of cool and colorful fall experiences on the near horizon. The changes in these northern Minnesota woods are now unmistakable. The hummingbirds have left on their migratory journey to warmer, more southern climes. The bracken ferns have gone through yellow and are reluctantly acquiescing to brown. A few sugar maples are starting to show their goodbye kisses to summer with their brilliant, flamboyant phycoerythrin pigments. The cattails (bulrushes) are puffing up, getting ready to disperse their seeds to the winds, and the sumacs are donning their deep-magenta cloaks. I haven’t seen any Canada geese in southbound chevron flight yet, but it won’t be long before they appear. The squirrels are as busy as can be, gathering and stowing whatever they can find for the long winter to come, even daring precarious perches to raid the sunflower seeds we’ve put out for the birds. The haunting songs of the loons that are such an integral part of the ambience here are now just memories. However, this is not only an end, but also a beginning. Autumn is very special for me, as my birthday falls in the first week of October, which usually coincides with the peak colors, and I use the opportunity to host a week of fun and music with some of my best friends in this world. Stay tuned—more about that soon!