Hoping for a Lingering Fall

It is cool and crisp this morning, cloudy with just a bit of sunlight peeking in around the edges.  The birds have begun to check out the feeders on a more urgent errand, and flocks of Canadian geese have already begun to fly high and fast in their V-formations overhead, honking their way southward in the pre-dawn silence.

Fall is arriving quickly this year.

I am told that the Farmer's Almanac is calling for an early and hard winter.  My granny used to set her calendar by the almanac as the bible of planting and harvesting, but I've never been so sure about it.  Somehow, though, this year feels a little more urgent in terms of preparation.  It just feels like the weather is going to turn suddenly, and we will just wake up to snow.

I am hoping for a lingering Fall.  There is something miraculous about the fleeting nature of the leaf color popping all at once and then disappearing like a mirage into the bare branches of winter, and I always want it to linger a little longer so that I can soak it in each year.

But it never does.

In the end, what I'm left with is a blazing memory of color, and a whole lot of leaves to rake out of our yard all at once.

(Photo via Dave Huets.  Love this shot!)