It Must Be Fall

It must be fall.

How do I know?

Here are some reasons, in no particular order.

The clouds are no longer tropical, but are becoming creatures of colder air. The grasses and sedges of the marsh at Black Point are tired, and are lying down into the rising waters of what is now a seasonal marsh.

Clouds and reflections of fall, Black Point, Chilmark, Massachusetts. 

The full greens of full summer’s leaves have darkened. There is less light each day.

Head of Oyster Pond, Quissett Area, Falmouth, MA

Some chores must be attended to. Painting must stop below forty degrees, and such chill will become more and more frequent.

Painting the Deck Seat, West Tisbury, MA

Yellows are creeping in to the color scheme of leaves…the locust trees at the ferry dock have in a short span of time gone from green to gold.

Fall at the Vineyard Haven Ferry Dock. Their annual barreltop plantings have papyrus “shakos” this year, which was an interesting and quirky touch. 

We went to pick up four storm windows last week. Outside the “big box” were harbingers not of fall, but of winter!

Snow Blowers at Lowes Big Box Store

Let’s segue from linear to circular geometries, for the annual cleaning and storing of the hummingbird feeders. The rubythroats, those miniature marvels of the bird world, have gone south. Our feeders, cleaned and ready for next year, will hibernate on an upper shelf in the pantry, waiting for the April day when they’ll be filled again and hung from branch and wire about Wishetwurra Farm.

Geometries of cleanliness, the hummerfeeders dry next to the sink. 

Decreasing daylength has given the budmaking go-ahead to the christmas cactus.

Dog and mistress now park in the upstairs window seat, comfortably resting.

Christine and Coquina.

And in the woodstove, the first fires of the season flare, burn, and settle into coals.

It must be fall.