Make like it is

We move like it’s Autumn, we do Autumn tasks, we make Autumn plans, because it’s Autumn. It just doesn’t feel like it.

Knowing what we know now, we would have continued planting another week, maybe two. But we didn’t know. We were running on the averages. We were playing it “safe”. We should have continued, because (and may I eat my words) Autumn seems to be almost nowhere in sight. Soon we will be out of greens and summer crops, and we will know that we could have had more.

Is that a complaint? Do I complain? It’s not, no I don’t think so. After all, we all know what awaits us. We all know that we will be soon be so vitamin D deficient and staving off SAD like all other maladies, that we will search plane tickets to Tahiti (and would buy them too, if we were just a tad crazier) just to feel like there are other possibilities. But right now, it doesn’t feel right; the warm days with barely a chill, the lack of a frost threat terrorizing our nights, the absence of cold winds coming in at any given time. It ain’t proper. It ain’t just. It ain’t Autumn.

It’s obviously too late to plant more (I say now, knowing that it’s IMPOSSIBLE that this will continue…right?) We will keep acting like it’s Autumn…only without hats…or sweaters…or…socks even. We will mime Autumn, like the trees are doing. It’s hybrid Autumn…casual Autumn…Autumn with a Summer attitude.

I think we know what is really going to happen. It’s going to be summer, and then all in one hit, it’ll be winter. Maybe I’m a little upset. I want a classic Autumn. The kind that feels like a friend. Maybe I’m a little scared, frightened that those could be a rarity going forward.

If Mamma Nature can keep sending us classics, I would be consoled. We didn’t keep planting. And truth be told, I had a feeling this might happen. But, I traded in those two weeks of salad, hoping in would clue in Mamma Nature to send it in. Obviously, that wasn’t an inspiring gesture.

There is still time. It could happen. Autumn could arrive. But if not, it’s okay. If there is one thing farmers are good at, it’s saying, “There’s always next year”.

But…we’ll keep cuing Momma Nature…cause I ain’t ready to say it.