It’s Falling—Part 1

By mid October it’s clear that Fall has arrived in the northern Shenandoah Valley. Up to now we’ve had a few sporadic hints of autumn, but they were immediately followed by a few days of warm Indian Summer. But Fall is surely upon us now. Change can literally be felt in the air—a combination of sights, smells, sounds, and the touch of autumn molecules on your skin. It’s so refreshing!

Fall is a dynamic interim period, when the stasis of summer yields to autumn, followed by the stasis of winter. Days grow perceptively shorter now, the climate crisps, winds heighten, and temperatures tumble. Frost lurks around the next corner. Despite the fact that Nature is preparing for death and dormancy, Fall paradoxically seems a time of quickening. It rouses one’s spirit as it prepares the land for the coming hibernation.

Autumn is a celebration of summer’s bounty—when we harvest and take stock of what the garden has produced. The last fresh samples of the garden’s gifts are relished—knowing that it will be the better part of a year before we’ll be enjoying that newly-picked taste again. We’re fully thankful, however, for all we have been able to set by; stocking up the freezer, in canning jars, in bags of dried veggies, and have waiting in the fruit cellar.

Fall is a verb. Of 25 definitions for Fall in my dictionary, the first 17 treat the word as a verb, as an action. Moreover, Fall is an intransitive verb, because, first and foremost, it is an action verb. We experience the doings of its impact. Fall is dynamic—it moves, it IS. It’s on the road to somewhere, and we are caught up in the excitement of the journey and in anticipation of the destination. After the doldrums of late summer, we’re finally going places! Fall is in the driver’s seat and is taking us there.

Fall’s impact on Nature is profound. Deciduous trees quit drawing sustenance from their leaves and begin severing their connections, sealing off the interface at the leaf stem. As the leaves begin to disconnect, they lose their green chlorophyll color, change to red or yellow or orange, and float to the ground. Fall derives its name from this shedding of leaves.

Insects prepare either to die or to over-winter huddled under those discarded leaves. Colonies of wasps wrap up their summer’s labors, as the workers begin to perish, while the queens—full of eggs for the following spring—seek their winter’s slumber. Colonies of bees begin to huddle closer together to provide the warmth they need to survive the winter—bolstered by an ample supply of nourishing honey they’ve laid up during warmer times.

Next time: more impacts of Fall.