The equinox hints at fall

I believed that September 21 was always the start of Autumn, but I am wrong. This year the fall equinox when night and day are the same length on the Equator, is September 23, in the middle of the night.

The past few days have hinted that the seasons are beginning to change. I went for a walk and heard the rustling of leaves on the trees that somehow foretells fall. Why do the leaves sound different this week? I cannot say, but the afternoon light is beginning to slant in a way that also tells me fall is coming. For birdwatchers, migratory birds are beginning to show up in the brushy trees along walking paths, and at Arcata Marsh where thousands of shorebirds stop on their seasonal journeys.

Northern California continues to surprise me, with many flowers still in bloom in late summer. A favorite is the Naked Lady (or Pink Lady, if you wish), a bulb that blooms on a leafless stalk after all its greenery has died back. They are in full flower now, lovely and a bit strange. I’m also surprised that the scent of jasmine is in the air. It’s blooming on fences all around Eureka. I thought it was a spring flower!

With the beautiful late sun and flowers all around, there is the natural flip side. Rain is scheduled to start again at the end of this weekend, and should increase and continue through the winter months. It’s the price of trees and flowers that start to bloom in March and continue through September. Though it has barely rained since June, I’ve been able to cover about 80% of my watering with gray water I collect in the kitchen. Our contact heater takes 1-3 gallons to go from cold to hot, and I run all that water into a bucket that I put on the plants. That and a bit of rinse water from things that need hand washing, I get 5-6 gallons a day to put on my plants.

By doing this, I hope to have tomatoes for another month or more. I didn’t do very well with our tomato plant and had to move it, so it’s just hitting its stride and putting out a lot of flowers now. I guess we’ll at least have some home grown green tomatoes for frying.

The North Country Fair last weekend provided some punctuation to the summer season, highlighted by the All-Species parade. This year it celebrated the removal of four dams from the Klamath River, a change that may increase salmon spawning which has decreased disastrously in recent years. A wall, “the dam”, led the parade. Immediately behind it were many “salmon”, leaping for the chance to reach their traditional spawning grounds. Periodically, a big “BOOM” sign opened, the dam parted, and the fish ran forward happily.