Early September is a distinctively peculiar stretch of days. An odd, unsettled period suffused with seasonal transcendency, its subtle, undercurrent mood hinting of both ambiguity and impermanence.
It’s like getting on a bus where you know your eventual destination, but have no clear notion of just how long that journey will take, or the route you’ll follow to get there!
September arrives and during its initial days, we realize summer’s end is now appearing on the not-too-distant horizon. But it’s like the sight of land following a lengthy voyage—irrefutable, yet mistily veiled, indistinct, with no reliable way to judge its distance.
Still, we’re definitely in a seasonal transition. Those long, languid days, whose number seemed endless back in the heady richness of July, are now in dwindling supply. Their daylight hours have already been noticeably reduced.
September’s early days are not genuine autumn. That happens officially with the passing equinox on the 22nd. But in my view, true autumn as imagined in the minds of most folks, really arrives in October.
No, early September is more presage—an augur that’s a click on time’s wheel and brings with it a compelling sense of autumn. Not autumn itself. Rather an awareness of summer’s abatement and the new season soon waiting.
Summer passes and the land begins to thin and dry. The lush greens of July and August start to fade, replaced by shades of purple and tan and gold.
There’s a ripeness to September. The tart scent of tangy red windfall apples from the limbs of the gnarly old apple on long-abandoned farmland. And the piquant-sweet zest of the musty wild fox grapes hanging in heavy purple clusters down by the river.
The hickories are looking a bit rusty. Twining woodbine starts to flame. And the sumachs start adding crimson feathers to their bonnets.
You begin keeping an eye on the big walnuts along the edge of the back fence row which the fox squirrels like to cut.
Squirrel season is here. But hot-weather bushytail hunts have never much appealed to me. I wait a few more weeks. To my mind, squirrels ought to be hunted no earlier than the cusp of autumn—on mornings chilled with dew, when the wind that stirs the woods an hour after dawn rattles leaves now starting to don an occasional hint of patchwork color.
The weather and some inner sense of order and propriety will tell you when it’s time to go squirrel hunting. Just as it will tell the local fox squirrels when to begin cutting those fence row walnuts.
September’s colors are strong, bold.
The bright yellow wealth of goldenrod dominates roadside fields. They began blooming in August, but plainly reach their zenith in early September.
Joe-Pye weed, ironweed, and late thistles persist, adding spectacular meadow accents. Orange-hued bittersweet twines the fence rows. You can find blue vervain and gentians, too, if you know where to look. And for a spot of reddest red, there’s the exquisite cardinal lobelia of the wet woods.
But the epitome bloom of September—the exemplar species of summer’s transition into autumn—is found in the asters. Glorious, glamorous asters standing tall and proud, lifting their purple-blue rays to catch the golden sunlight of the changing season.
Asters are like the roadside prelude to autumn’s great leaf-color symphony of the woodlands. That first stirring note that signals the show’s beginning.
September unfolds and there’s an inkling of disquiet. A mood not yet urgent—that will come in October—but of restlessness. A sense of things to get done, of duties yet unfulfilled.
Woodchucks feed long and deliberately, taking full advantage of the diminishing days. Yet they’ll often be found sunning in front of their burrows—as if they understand that times for such indulgences are about over.
The chipmunk whose burrow is deep below the woodpile, zips to and fro, stocking his granary, getting his winter bedroom lined with a new nest of sweet grasses.
Warblers, dressed in autumnal drabs, will be passing in migratory waves through the woodlands.
Filaments of gossamer thistle-floss shimmer as they drift on currents of the afternoon breeze.
Early September brings a special magic to evening skies. Marbleized washes painted in shades of lavender, pink, gold, turquoise, salmon, purple, orange, indigo. Breathtaking twilight canvases that change by the minute.
The old Harvest Moon waxes and gleams. Summer’s flashing fireflies have disappeared, replaced by friendly stars that twinkle ever brighter in the darkening heavens.
Frog croaks have been taken over by cricket and katydid chirps, a strident insectile sawing that contains within a note of exigency.
Sometimes a night might carry the mysterious antiphonal hooting of barred owls—inscrutable conversations that seem to float in the moonlight.
Summer draws to its culmination—though not without sharing its rich cornucopia of fruits, grains, and the garden’s bounty.
September’s message is deliberate, gentle, sweet—a slow, swaying waltz along this final downhill stretch of road leading to awaiting autumn.
Reach Jim McGuire at [email protected].
