Colours of the Fall

We are in the middle of Babye Lyeto or Old Woman Summer. Days are golden warm and nights still have not drop below freezing. Gardening is pretty much wrapped up for the year. Tanya is planting garlic today which we will harvest next fall. We took the cabbages off last week and hired a boy to dig the garden. Tanya doesn’t like it ploughed as the tractor packs the soil, she says. So in four days of hard labour this kid made $40.

Our neighbours finished taking beets, carrots and cabbages off last weekend, too. Pumpkins, squash and fodder beets are all home safely, most for pigs or cattle. The small cornfields are picked and the stalks cut and hauled home for cattle feed. Our neighbour down the road, with several cows and a small tractor, hired three men to haul manure and spread it on the cornfields. The manure had been stockpiled since last fall so is pretty rank. I do hope they get it ploughed down soon.

The chestnut trees turned brown a while back and are dropping leaves all over the streets, keeping the street sweeping ladies busy. The birches are beginning to turn yellow and many trees are still green. Fall colours here are much like home, mostly golds and russets. Not many of the beautiful crimsons associated with Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes. But there are some – Virginia Creeper, Mountain Ash* and several others add colour to the fall. Even rose hips.

And there are still flowers blooming in flowerbeds along the streets. We have blooms in our front flowerbeds too, including a late rose or two but next year will be even better.

*I think. To paraphrase Victor Borge, I only recognize two trees. One is a Christmas tree. The other one isn’t.