Autumn's Bounty

I suppose today might not be the best day to sing the praises of autumn in the Midwest. After all, the temperature in the Chicago area is a pretty humid 88 degrees Fahrenheit right now, not exactly a day to make you think of pulling out the cozy sweaters and firing up the fireplace.

According to the newspaper's weather page, we're as hot as Miami and New Orleans today, nearly as hot as Houston and Dallas.

But one of the nice things about living where I do is that the weather is always changing. So even as I'm sweltering, I can rest assured that this hot, humid September we've been having will soon segue into those refreshingly cool, crisp, colorful days of October.

There are many perfectly good scientific explanations for this sometimes welcome, sometimes vexing unpredictability of midwestern weather. But since this isn't a weather blog, I'll try to keep the meteorological explanations short but sweet.

Suffice to say that this area of the U.S. gets buffeted by just about every jet stream known to North America, so that the weather can change on a dime, depending on the prevailing winds.

Often during the winter, one of those fierce Canadian cold fronts will swoop down from the arctic regions of our fair northern neighbor. So on those days, we often find ourselves in the icy grip of waaaay-below-zero temperatures (I'm talking the kind of cold that can make a basketball cease to bounce, and nearly shatter it, or freeze the beer in the bottle before it touches your lips...trust me, I've tried both of these things when it was 25-below-zero Fahrenheit, just for the heck of it, so these are firsthand observations).

Then just when we've grown weary of this Inuit lifestyle, the winds might shift to the northwest and it can get quite balmy, if some of that milder Pacific air survives its trek across the Great Plains and gets to us. Or a southerly wind might bring us some of that wet, warm air from the Gulf of Mexico and turn the snow to fog, giving us temporary relief from frostbitten fingers and toes. Then there's the fact that we're in a temperate climate zone anyway, which means we're guaranteed four seasons a year.

Okay, sorry. That was more technical jargon than I'd planned to foist on you. So let me translate it all into practical terms. What it means is that--just when you can't bear the thought of trudging out covered from head to toe to shovel yet another five inches of heavy,wet, heart-attack snow off your driveway; just when your mood has become as gray and dreary as the dirty, tired mounds of snow that flank every road you drive on, as prickly as those dagger-like icicles hanging precariously from your gutters and looming over your front stairs, along come the first signs of the spring thaw.

You open the shades on a gloomy, bone-chilling winter morning and catch a blur of red-orange against the white backdrop; your heart gladdens as you mentally mark the date--usually sometime in March--of your first robin sighting. Or you spot the first tender green shoots of the crocuses poking their way through the snow, and you know that any day now, they'll be adding a dash of vivid purple to the dull winter palette.



And now back to autumn. After having sweltered through some of June, most of July and August, and now September, I've come to take the panoply of lush green, growing things around me for granted.

Unfortunately, this can sometimes happen when you've had too much of a good thing. For instance, after vacationing in the Florida Keys several times, my husband and I briefly entertained the notion of living down there year round...until we realized just how much we'd miss the winter, spring and fall if we lived in the land of eternal summer. I need that contrast that only the change of seasons can provide to help me truly appreciate the beauty of what's just passed and what's about to unfold. There's just nothing like surviving a long, cold winter to make you appreciate the arrival of spring and summer.

By the same reasoning, after a long Midwest summer, dare I say it? I'm suffering from green overload. Away with those verdant hues which I found so welcome and lovely in springtime and early summer! Bring on the warm rusts, oranges, golds, browns and maroons of autumn! I am eagerly awaiting that burst of physical and psychic energy known as autumn, or just plain "fall" as lots of us Midwesterners are wont to call it.

School seems to be starting earlier and earlier every year. But to me, no child should have to go back to school in the depths of summer, when the pools are still open, the mind is still in summer vacation mode, and we're still in those lazy, dog days of August.

But come September, I'm quite ready to have them (and me) back to the school routine. There's an inverse relationship between my ability to think and the temperature. As the latter climbs, the former tends to plunge. Like the pansy that I am, I tend to bloom profusely in the spring and fall, but wilt and lose my luster in the scorching heat of midsummer. But as the humidity and heat indexes drop, I feel a fog lifting from my mind and spirit. Suddenly I have a fresh outlook on life. I feel a renewal of mental and physical energy, meaning I can think and move again.



So I've managed to think of some of the many things I love about autumn here in the Midwest.

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Apple pickin' time at the local apple orchard.

The warm, brilliant earth-tones of leaves at the peak of their turning, so that everywhere you go you're surrounded by a palette of rusty-browns, luminous golds, oranges, reds, maroons and even eggplant purples.

The potted mums in similar rustic, earthy hues, lending that special autumn feel to so many front porches and yards.

Many of your neighbors become artists, creating lovely autumnal still lifes in their front yards out of artfully placed mums, corn-husk bundles and bales of hay.

The gourds in so many twisted, primitive shapes and harvest colors.

The sky a deep, more brilliant blue than at any other time of year.

Walking under a canopy of turning maples, aspen or birches and being bathed in a golden, glowing light.

Weekend trips to pumpkin farms with their corn mazes, homemade haunted houses, homebaked goods like apple-cider/cinnamon donuts, homemade jams and salsas in fancy jars, apple crisp, apple or pumpkin pie topped with a dollop of whipped cream, and oh, just about apple anything. Hayrides out to the pumpkin-dotted fields and through the rust-colored oak trees. Watching the kids search for the "perfect pumpkin."

The formerly yearly appearance of "Injun Summer" (http://www.tuxjunction.net/injunsummer.html)

in the Chicago Tribune magazine. Some of the phrases and terms the author uses--"cigar-store Injuns," "redskins," etc.--are by today's standards in very poor taste and understandably offensive to many Native Americans. Still...I've included a link to it just because it's so durn evocative of autumn, and I really DO think its heart was in the right place when it was written in the early 1900s. (Note the sad, almost mournful acknowledgement that the "Injuns" have all "gone away.")

Backyard bonfires with hot chocolate, apple cider and s'mores.

Big yellow or orange harvest moons.

Time to dig out the cozy, bulky sweaters, fall jackets and long-sleeved shirts again.

No more sweaty face and frizzy hair.

Trick-or-treaters crunching through the dead leaves as they make their way to your door.

A fire crackling in the fireplace.

Hot coffee tastes good again, something to savor rather than just endure for a caffeine buzz.

Raking the leaves with my husband, the kids and the dog, then jumping into the piles with all of 'em.

The gnarly, twisty, slightly spooky look of bare oak tree branches silhouetted against the sky at twilight.

Cooking hearty, savory stews and soups in the crockpot.

Getting the urge to bake again.

Warming up the kitchen by firing up the oven to bake cookies and brownies again.

And on that note, I'll sign off for now by wishing you all a colorful, spirit-rejuvenating, magical autumn.