October 2011, Southern Oregon
(Took this photo last year. Not cold enough yet for the trees to start changing)
Today, at long last, it's the first day of Autumn. And this morning it was miraculously cool enough to wear my hoodie when I walked the boys. Course, by the end of the hike, I was too hot and sweaty because the sun broke through the cloud cover like a laser beam, but still. Summer is officially over and I couldn't be happier--hop up and down with glee happier. If I've learned anything over the past months, it's that I do not like scorching, endless heat. I need rain. Not necessarily a steady deluge, but it's just not natural to go for months--literally--without a drop of rain. The sun was relentless, burning everything, day after day until I honestly thought I was going to go nuts.
It appears you can take the girl out of Alaska/Seattle/Scotland but you can't take Alaska/Seattle/Scotland out of the girl. I am a rainy, cloudy, layer-on-the-clothes kind of person as it turns out, and if I wasn't aware of that before, after this Summer, there's just no doubt I'm aware now.
Though it's still in the 80s, the nights will be cooler, and in fact last night I snuggled down under the comforter for the first time in...months? Seems like years. Even the boys cuddled in, rather than laying all sprawled on the floor, gasping in the brain-boiling humidity.
And so, here we are. The Autumnal Equinox. At 14:49 Universal Time, the day and night were equal lengths (give or take a minute or two). For those of you living on Mars or any of the other planets in the Universe, please set your clocks accordingly.
(Sorry, I just have to nitpick for a moment here. Universal Time? Who comes up with this stuff? Global Time, Greenwich Mean Time, Earth Time, Atomic Clock time...I get it. But Universal? Scientifically it's not possible. Other celestial bodies don't have the same rotational orbit as Earth, so a 24-hour day has absolutely no relevance anywhere except on Earth. There's nothing Universal about it. I'm just sayin'...)
Anyway. Whatever. I suppose it really doesn't matter. What does matter: It's Fall!! Cool, refreshing, wonderful, cosy Fall, filled with soups and stews, chili and corn bread, spaghetti sauce filling the house with the scent of Italy, hot chocolate and cinnamon toast, the smell of wood smoke in the air, and burning leaves, rain pattering on the roof while I'm wrapped in a throw reading a book, the dogs snoring at my feet. Oh, bring it on.
And will I miss Summer, with the debilitating heat, bone-melting humidity, and brown scorched earth? Never. Not for one single Universal minute...
Did summer ever really start :p I know we did not get much of one over here.
ReplyDeleteI need a place between fire and flood. Edinburgh this Summer was one long endless rainstorm, but here in southern Oregon it was like living in the Sahara. Surely, somewhere on our great planet, there's a temperate zone?
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