Just Yesterday It Was Spring

 

I passed my favorite chrysanthemum place Saturday morning and noticed that a few plants were showing color.  “Oh, my,” I thought.  “They are blooming way too early.”  Then, much to my startlement, I realized that next week is September.

Just yesterday it was spring and I was buying pansies and tomato plants.  Just yesterday I picked the first tomato and boiled the first ears of corn.  The pansies are long gone, the tomatoes are on their last roundup and the cornstalks are brown and dry, ready to become fall decorations.

Any day now, wild geese will sail the skies, honking their sad goodbyes.  God will once again paint the world with autumn. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I love the fall.  God gives us fall to make winter’s approach bearable, so we can store up the colors and scents in our souls for dreary winter days. I love the crisp air, the morning fog, and the nights that make you want a sweater.  I love the colors, the mounds of fat pumpkins, the exuberant rows of mums and the asters that line the roadside.  I love driving behind lumbering behemoths of farm equipment, on the way to the fields, and I love hearing them running into the night, racing against winter’s deadline.  So many good memories of autumn.  Rows of beans and tomatoes lining the shelves in our basement.  Jewel toned jellies, relishes and pickles at the county fair.  Baskets of potatoes and onions. A barn loft filled with fragrant hay and the golden corn and oats in the cribs. Children and dogs swimming in a mountain of maple leaves.

I love the surprise of a late tomato or a leftover pepper.  I enjoy gathering walnuts to scatter in the driveway, our traditional way of hulling them.  Right now, in these last few days of August, we can catch our breath for a couple of weeks.  We need that break.  Summer’s frenzy is over, the school year has started, and we are about to mount the galloping horse that will take us into the holiday season. 

I passed my chrysanthemum paradise again yesterday.  More plants are showing color, yellow and red and gold peeking out of their dark green undergarments.  Fall is coming.