Tag Archives: fall

Oh No It’s The “Brrr” Months

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Meteorological Fall is now here. While fall doesn’t officially begin till September 22nd, the weather begins to shift a couple weeks before the arrival of each new season on average. For data purposes the National Weather Service calculates the season statistics from the beginning of June through the end of August. Since the first day of each season can vary, this makes it easier to calculate statistics and compare them from year to year. I admit, hearing the weather forecaster announce that last night made me sit up and take notice. It can’t be fall already. I never got to enjoy summer!

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Around here we refer to September, October, November and December as the “Ber” months or more commonly the “Brrrr” months because they herald the onset of cooler and eventually colder weather. By December the shivers have usually really set in.

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I remember when I was growing up in the Adirondacks that to go Trick or Treating on Halloween we had to be bundled in snow suits. More than once our costumes wouldn’t fit over the winter gear so all anyone saw when we came to the door were our masks.

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After I moved east to Massachusetts the weather seemed to mellow and kids could go trick or treating without snowshoes but then in 2011 we got hit with a Halloween Nor’easter, the first significant snowstorm in October sine 1972!

Today I’m enjoying a rainy Sunday. There’s thunder and lightening and steady rain.  It’s not too cold but at least I haven’t put the AC or heat on yet. I know a lot of people are hoping the sky clears and the sun comes out to give everyone a last taste of summer on this holiday weekend.

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This summer was gone too fast, filled with changes and distractions but now children are headed back to school and vacations are over. I’m hoping my work schedule can settle in so that I can enjoy the fall. Maybe get to take some day trips leaf peeping with my camera. Anyway I’m going to chalk this summer up to the one I missed. Happily they come around once each year.

Oh I almost forgot…the Old Farmers Almanac is predicting a cold winter…BRRRRR.

Finally, a Beautiful October Day!

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I’ve been waiting for this..bright blue skies with puffy white clouds, a cool nip in the air, some wind to blow the falling leaves around…now that’s October and it gives me an excuse to share one of my favorite poems.

This was required reading for an English class I took in school. I think it was 5th grade English but I could be wrong. No matter when I was introduced to this poem, it’s stayed with me all of these years.

October’s Bright Blue Weather…by Helen Hunt Jackson

O suns and skies and clouds of June

And flowers of June together,

Ye cannot rival for one hour

October’s bright blue weather.

*

When loud the bumblebee makes haste,

Belated, thriftless vagrant,

And Goldenrod is dying fast

And lanes with grapes are fragrant.

*

Went gentians roll their fingers tight

To save them for the morning.

And chestnuts fall from satin burrs

Without a sound of warning.

*

When on the ground red apples lie

In piles like jewels shining.

And redder still on old stone walls

Are leaves of woodbine twining.

When all the lovely wayside things

Their white-winged seeds are sowing,

And in the fields still green and fair,

Late aftermaths are growing.

*

When springs run low, and on the brooks

In idle golden freighting,

Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush

Of woods, for winter waiting.

*

When comrades seek sweet country haunts,

By twos and twos together.

And count like misers , hour  by hour,

October’s bright blue weather.

O sun and skies and flowers of June,

Count all your boasts together.

Love loveth  best of all the year

October’s bright blue weather.

Happy Labor Day

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Here we are at September 3, 2012, Labor Day. Are you grillin’ and chillin’  in celebration or are you one of the folks who have to hold the fort at your job while the rest of us enjoy the unofficial end of summer?

Just think, all of you parents out there, your little ones will be headed back to school in a few days.

The air is starting to have a bit of a nip and we can actually open the windows at night with temps into the 50’s. Soon leaves will change and the “leaf peeping “season will begin. Stores already have  Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas displays started. (There is no season in retail)

Believe it or not the first big Labor Day in the US was celebrated September 5, 1882. Oregon was the first state to make it a holiday 5 years later in 1887. It became Federal Holiday in 1994 and by then 30 states were celebrating the day.

Although Labor Day was meant to support and celebrate the Labor movement it is more likely to be thought of as the symbolic end of the summer with cookouts and parties. It is also the date when fashionable women stop wearing white.