Monday morning, as I was picking blueberries, Don came out to tell me he had completed a project he'd been working on. Then he added, "And I'm calling fall."
"Calling fall" is something Don tries to do each year about this time. Clearly this has little to do with the actual calendar or even the daily temperature (a couple years ago, he called fall when it was 103F). But there are subtle signs he's good at picking up.
"Listen," he said, after tell me he was calling fall. I paused and listened and heard ... nothing. It was as if the birds and insects were taking a break. The silence was peaceful, not ominous; but it was also clearly a transition between seasons.
Then yesterday morning I was hanging laundry out to dry on the back porch. It was fairly early, maybe 10 am, and I heard a gentle breeze rustle the leaves of the oak tree right next to the house. The leaves aren't even close to changing color – they're still perfectly green – yet they somehow managed to quietly rattle with an autumn sound.
This is the earliest Don has ever called fall. He hemmed and hawed about calling it even earlier, and kept second-guessing himself because it was SO early in the season. It makes me wonder if it's some sort of indicator about what kind of winter we'll have.
Yes, fall is on its way. Don hasn't been wrong yet.
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