All nature is so full, that that district produces the greatest

variety which is the most examined. – Gilbert White

The moon enters its second quarter on Sept. 29.

The Major Planets of September

Look for Jupiter high in Gemini before dawn. Saturn comes up in the middle of the night and remains in the sky throughout the day. Red Mars in Virgo and giant Venus in Leo will be the Evening Stars.

When-Then Phenology

When the ash trees turn red and gold, then the season of killing frosts has arrived.

When the day’s length falls below 12 hours, then the sugar beet, pear, cabbage and cauliflower harvests commence in the Great Lakes region. In Wisconsin, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington State, the cranberry harvest begins as berries darken in the cooler weather.

When goldenrod flowers are tufted and gray, then daddy longlegs disappear from the undergrowth and bird migrations reach their peak.

Natural Calendar

The temporal countryside of Yellow Springs takes on its autumnal contours from the increasingly violent movements of the Earth’s atmosphere as it tilts away from the sun.

Graphs of barometric pressure reveal many of the topographical patterns of the season. August’s barometric configurations are slow and gentle like low, rolling dunes. Heat waves show up as wide plateaus. Thunderstorms are sharp, shallow troughs in the mellow waves of the atmospheric landscape.

At the close of Late Summer, the year has begun its ascent to the steep cliffs of December. By the beginning of October, the barometric waves are stronger; the high-pressure peaks become taller; the lows are deeper, with almost every valley bringing rain. 

Tapering floral sequences and the gradual surge of leaf turn occur amid the diminishing expanse of middle September. From the broad lowland of warmth with its six months of birdsong and its hundred days of insect calls, the sun pulls the land up into the foothills of the year where asters and goldenrod bloom and where trees are gold and red. 

Middle Fall is the rough piedmont of another country, stripping foliage, putting buds into dormancy, burning away the undergrowth and revealing the dark hillsides. At the end of Late Fall, December’s great range of cold and snow fills the horizon. Beyond it lies another immense upland, the frigid, high plateau of Deep Winter in which nothing ever seems to grow or change until the ground crumbles and gives way, shattered by thaws, and time tumbles down into the sudden, stormy gorge of March.

Compensation

There is an emptiness at the end of early fall, an absence of flowers and birdsong, the slowing of the pulse of the crickets, the opening of the sky in the woods when leaves come down, and sometimes I try to fill the gap in time with whatever is close at hand.

Today, I felt that everything was eluding me, and thinking I might have missed what was most important, I went close to what I had nearby, found seed heads everywhere, spent rose petals, rose hips I should have pruned, dried hydrangea blossoms covered in spiderwebs, Joe Pye bushy and dun like burdock, three blue spiderworts out of season, hops heavy across the euonymus, oodles of black redbud seeds like manes in the branches, the soft green seeds of the fierce wood nettle, new waterleaf leaves, mottled grape vines, red crab apples bigger than I’d ever noticed before, stiff and prickly burrs of purple coneflowers, the unusual brightness of honeysuckle berries in the afternoon light.

All things around me seemed benign and soothing: a handful of soft, dark red raspberries from the patch that failed to produce much of anything this year, crabgrass gone to seed, its claws not threatening but protective, the summer mallow crumbling away, a skipper and a naked lady butterfly and a cabbage white ruffled by the breeze in the zinnias, the white fall crocus half drooped, the highest branches of the hackberry bare, honeybees climbing in the asters, and the chirping and chirping of sparrows north of the garden.

As I walked, the wind picked up, pushing fat cumulus clouds so fast, and I felt surrounded and safe within an enclosure of motion and sound, one vulture swooping across the canopy, free. All of a sudden, the air was cold and clouds moved over me, and the afternoon turned cruel and hollow. Then just as quickly there was sun again, and I felt at home and at peace. And at dusk, three green hummingbirds came spinning through the butterfly bushes, alighting for a few moments on the feeders, then whirring up into the mulberry tree for the night.

Reader Story

An Exciting Birthday

By Ione Warner, of Bryan, Ohio

This is one of my favorite birthday stories. It appeared in the Almanack 15 years ago, and it is a reminder that people can find excitement almost anywhere they look. My hope is that Ione had many more birthdays just as happy.

Now I’m going to write you a true story. On Saturday, April 21, I was 84 years old. Two of my girlfriends wanted to take me out for dinner. So, at 10 a.m., they picked me up. They surprised me when they stopped to pick up my sister too. She is 75 years old.

We finally left Bryan and started driving east. We had gone quite a ways when I saw a town north of us. The girls said it was Archbold. Well, they said it was, so I suppose it was.

I was wondering where we were going, and they told me to Grand Rapids, Ohio. We are on so many roads, you see, going south and east. And what do you know, we were driving along the Maumee River and the Erie Canal.

This was exciting for me and my sister was the same way. It wasn’t long until we crossed the river on a five-span bridge. We went to the C and J Restaurant for dinner. What a great place to eat. We must have spent an hour in there.

There we started out to shop. There was a craft store a few doors down, and you know that store was as big as where we ate. Grand Rapids is a nice little town. They had benches along the main street. And that is where my sister and I ended up, on a bench. The other girls kept on shopping.

Then we went to the car to start home. We crossed the river again and drove west. The first thing I knew, we were in a big town, and what do you know, we were in Napoleon. We went to a big mall where Walmart is located, so we did some more shopping there. I bought dark and light blue yarn. The skeins were 10 ounces apiece. I bought four for an afghan. It was cheaper than at home.

And with the day being warm and sunny, I enjoyed every minute. Soon as I got home, off came the shoes, and I hurried to get on my house slippers. And when everyone left and things got straightened away, I made some supper then watched TV for a while.

I will remember this day, for I will never be 84 again.