Fall is upon us

Al Batt, Nature's World

Published Saturday, September 26, 2009

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

“How are you doing?” I ask.

“Everything is nearly copacetic. Another day, another dollar. Well, except for the dollar part. The assessor was just out to the farm. He said that my property taxes are going up.”

“Did you remodel?” I wonder aloud.

“No, I cleaned the garage. I’d rather live in a tent and get kicked in the shin each day than to pay more real estate taxes. I had to get another part-time job so I’ll be able to give the taxman his pound of flesh. I’m working as a chicken catcher. I go into those huge laying houses with a crew, catch chickens, and load them onto a truck. My boss is Tory. He’s the most famous chicken catcher in the world.”

“He is?” I say.

“He’s known far and wide as Chicken Catcher Tory. I understand you’ve been flying around the country again.”

“I need to make a living and flying is involved,” I answer.

“There’s no way I’m ever getting on an airplane.”

“When it’s your time to go, it doesn’t matter if you’re on the ground or in the air,” I reason.

“I know. I just don’t want to be that far off the ground when it’s the pilot’s time to go.”

Fall

The day grows still. I look for the last flutters of wings as but a thin slice of daylight remains. Darkness descends earlier and earlier.

We plod up the hill of summer and when we reach the summit, we can see autumn on the next hill.

A dying leaf, trembling at the end of a branch on a tree robed in splendid colors, is both sad and majestic. The whispering of leaves passing secrets. A leaf of impossible color flutters to the ground.

It’s fall when flocks of leaves tumble in the wind over a frost-tanned landscape. When days of crisp perfection are enhanced with every color available at Mother Nature’s Paint Store.

In “To Silence,” Thomas Hood wrote, “Autumn in the misty morn / Standing shadowless like silence, listening.”

Fall and the passage of the seasons provide reassuring comfort that despite the other odd things going on in our lives, some things can be depended upon. Yet, the seasons serve to remind us that change is inevitable.

When autumn is in its heaven, I recall the wonderful words of John Donne, “No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face.” 

The fallen leaves dance with an enthusiastic wind. Mother Nature takes her richest reds, her most vibrant yellows, and dazzling oranges to create a glorious autumn quilt. Then she rips up the quilt and makes it into a throw rug. Johnny Mercer sang about this rug in “Autumn Leaves.” “The falling leaves drift by the window, the autumn leaves of red and gold. I see your lips, the summer kisses, the sunburned hands I used to hold. Since you went away the days grow long, and soon I’ll hear old winter’s song. But I miss you most of all my darling when autumn leaves start to fall.”

We know because we have been told that the clever changes in leaves are chemical processes. Chlorophyll turns into carotenes, xanthophylls, and anthocyanins. Knowing the science behind the transformations doesn’t make fall any less magical. Fall is a time when our multi-hued leaves turn into garbage bags and the UPS drivers switch from short pants to long pants. When cold weather causes the mosquitoes to drop like flies. It’s when I know that seeing a woolly bear caterpillar is a sure sign that the price of heating fuel will go up. I know that it is time to winterize cars and houses after the last tomato is picked. Fall is a time of crickets, rustling leaves, sleeping grass, and more crickets.

Nature looks tired and the absence of leaves on the trees will echo during winter’s silent snows.

Nature lessons

The highest measured earthquake on the Richter scale ever recorded in Minnesota occurred in 1975 in Morris. It registered 4.7.

Hay fever sufferers, it’s not the goldenrod, it’s the ragweed. Goldenrod is insect pollinated and ragweed is wind pollinated. Research has shown that nightcrawlers forage actively for giant ragweed seeds and are capable of burying the majority of the seed produced by a stand of giant ragweed. Nightcrawlers  distribute seeds over a range of depths thus influencing seed dormancy and seedling emergence. This seed burial protects seeds from predation and exerts a strong influence over giant ragweed populations in subsequent years.

Pheasants Forever has purchased a 233-acre parcel in Pipestone County using funds from the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Fund. The new 233-acre Dubbledee addition connects to the existing 310-acre Winter Wildlife Management Area. This is the first land acquisition using funds from the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment approved by Minnesota voters last November. PF plans to turn the land over to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

An inch of rain will produce approximately 110 tons of water per acre or approximately 26,347 gallons

According to the World Almanac and Book of Facts, a garden snail travels 0.03 mph. At that rate, it would take a snail more than 33 hours to go 1 mile.

I’ve been reading

This from Martin W. Sandler’s Atlantic Ocean, “Before Columbus, the diet of Europeans had remained basically unchanged for tens of thousands of years, based mainly on oats, barley, and wheat. Within a quarter century of his first voyage, the European diet became richer, more varied, and more nutritious. The list of foods that made their way into Europe is extensive and includes maize, squash, pumpkin, avocado, papaya, cassava, vanilla, tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, strawberries, and beans of almost every variety.”

Thanks for stopping by

“Often we allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget. We lose many irreplaceable hours brooding over grievances that, in a year’s time, will be forgotten by us and by everybody. No, let us devote our life to worthwhile actions and feelings, to great thoughts, real affections and enduring undertakings.” — Andre Maurois

“The world is a great mirror. It reflects back to you what you are. If you are loving, if you are friendly, if you are helpful, the world will prove loving and friendly and helpful to you. The world is what you are.” — Thomas Dreier

DO GOOD.

  Al Batt of Hartland is a member of the Albert Lea Audubon Society. E-mail him at SnoEowl@aol.com.

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