Shifting gears

It’s happened again. I wasn’t paying attention and it snuck up on me. Just when I was getting into the groove, too… You know what I mean, I am sure. I am talking about the ominous turn of the calendar page. It is September. Summer is over.

Even though I have put it down on the screen I still have not quite come to terms with it. Perhaps that is why I live in the Okanagan: I like to gradually wean myself off summer, let myself gently down from that intense season of being in the garden and on the deck or the beach at any hour of the day. This month I am still stubborn about sitting outside in the evening (I will rub my arms but I will NOT put on a sweater yet), and I am determined that the elements in the garden that are not fully harvested or (can you believe it?!) not ripe will manage to fulfill their destiny as I planned all along. In Septembers such as this, it all seems possible. I am so thankful we live in such a paradise.

Nevertheless, you do have to shift gears when that calendar page turns. Martin and I don’t have kids to send back to school, but we still see them. All of a sudden they come back out of the woodwork, it seems, and into daily routines again. I will be with the Girl Guides again next week, and I am seeing the neighbourhood kids back at their regular chores already, taking out the garbage and walking the dog. Their summer passes have been handed in and they are once again indentured into the routines created by parents and teachers (at least that is the way I remember feeling when I was a kid.) Even as an adult, don’t you get that melancholy feeling when September arrives that the frivolity is over and it’s time to get back to the serious part of life? If you are fortunate enough to still have that spark of childhood in you, then that urge is tempered by the wistful autumn breeze, and before you know it you are aimlessly strolling through a field or orchard (maybe with your dogs?), enjoying the golden light of the waning sun and the fruit still on the trees, like the last stars before dawn.

September is the month when we stop drinking from the garden hose during garden chores, and we go back to having a cup of tea in the evening. On the bright side though, it is a chance to enjoy the transition of the seasons before we actually have to embrace the new one coming. I propose that we celebrate the end of summer before we start to concentrate on fall. Thanks to the heat Mother Nature has offered up this year, we can manage to cram in one more picnic or walk on the beach and there are still enormous peaches and plums left to bite into at the farmers’ market (the kind that are so juicy it runs down your arm). We can save those comfort foods like squash and apples for October, when it really will be fall.

I hope you can soak in the last vestiges of summer before that Solstice brings us into autumn. The fair is on in Armstrong – have a mini donut and see the 4H winners. Or maybe you just need to stop for ice cream and sit next to the fruit trees as that golden light hits them. It will make you remember all those days at the beach and the wonderful BBQ’s…

Photo: Contributed

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