Autumn and

When’s the last time you made a mistake? We made a big one recently: we blinked. One measly blink and summer was gone. Oops.

We were just getting used to shining cyan skies and long, golden days when summer sprinted off stage and September sashayed onto the scene. Dorothy-like, we found ourselves whirlwinded into autumn, wondering where summer went: “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in August anymore.”

Yes, we’ve reluctantly released our grip on summer, but not to fret. Autumn has long been our favorite season. ‘Tis the time for school resuming, hunting season, holidays, harvest, and hot chocolate. Wall-to-wall football. Page Turners at the library. Birthdays for Nathan and Sam. Classes and swimming at the YMCA. Hot soup. Cinnamon rolls. Hand-picking apples and pears right off the trees. Pumpkins and squash. Blackberries by the bushel.

Cinnamon, saffron, pumpkin hue
Leaves drift down, slow sun slips through

Ah, autumn. Here in the hinterlands of western Washington, the days will soon grow shorter, darkness will drop earlier, and nights will begin to bite. Deciduous trees are already shucking their leaves like corn husks. Hills don tiaras of bronze, ruby, copper and topaz. Short, cool days and a slow-down in chlorophyll production splash vine and bigleaf maple leaves with colors that race from tree to tree like flames in a forest fire.

Wet winds crunch and crackle
Munching mounds of molten leaves
Drenched and dripping alders
Snap and sparkle in the breeze

Autumn. Cozy. Crunchy. Tawny. Keats’ “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.” Early morning walks with the dog are already damp and snappish. Sunshine spangles afternoons with stiff, sharp stabs. Thinning crowds and crisp weather also mean quick day trips and as many hikes as we can cram into the calendar before “monsoon season” arrives.

Atop the dampened forest floor
As summer’s sweetness wanes
Mushrooms pop up, wearing hats
To shed the autumn rain.

Late autumn on this side of the Olympic Mountains also means heavy rain. Rising from sea level to as high as eight thousand feet, the Olympics present a giant rock barrier against moisture-laden winds of the ocean. Sea winds rush up the mountain slopes, cool suddenly, and dump their loads of moisture as rain, which can last for days or weeks. The mist never lets up. About 150 inches of rain fall every year in the Olympics, less than an hour north. That’s roughly two billion gallons of water for each square mile of land. That’s also more rainfall than any other place in America. The result is a really, really “cool” temperate rain forest with towering Douglas fir, Sitka spruce and miles of moss. Similar temperate rain forests grow on the Pacific coast from Alaska to California, but Washington’s Olympic rain forest is the largest in the nation.

Smoky columns prance
On sleek skies dark and blue
The season whispers, stalls, then flees
Spilling rich autumnal hue

We can’t avoid blinking altogether, but we’re keeping an eye out for those rich autumnal hues and the rest of autumn’s sudden prance. Doubtless winter will be upon us before we know it: “Toto, I have feeling we’re not in…” Well, you know.

Story ID:	951
Written by:	Kristine L. (bio, link, contact, other stories)
Story type:	Letter
Location:	-- WA USA
Year:	2006