Summer is winding down here.  Our nights are consistently in the 50’s, even when the days might still hit 90.  It hit 89 today, and will be 90 or a little more through the end of the weekend.  But the nights, the late sunrises (now at 6:10 a.m.), and the daily afternoon showers all point to fall.  The geese are flocking together in larger numbers, and moving anxiously from one body of water to the next, gorging on whatever they can, in preparation for their flights to the south.  In the early mornings, as the sun first touches the highest mountain peaks to the west, there is a dusting of snow.  The pelicans have already left, and the ducklings are as grown as their parents.  The frogs have stopped croaking at the ponds I ride by, and the bird song has changed.  Leaves are starting to lose their shiny appearance, and early-turning trees are starting to show color.  I love fall.  I love the crisp air, the changing leaves, the pumpkins on doorsteps and the fluffy sweaters and smell of woodsmoke in the air.

But summer has its own charms, when you don’t think about the heat.  This time of summer is when harvest is happening.  The air is ripe with the smell of fresh-cut wheat and hay fields.  Tractors trundle along the country roads I drive, heading from one field to the next to harvest.  The field corn is tall and tassled, and the sweet corn in the stores is juicy and sweet and earthy when you bite into it.  Fresh fruit is abundant in roadside stands and the farmer’s markets.  Our own Colorado Palisade Peaches are ripe and delicious, and cheap.  I never get tired of the daily fruit salads I prepare, and the fresh veggies I saute or put into soups.  The impulse to eat and eat until you can’t eat any more is strong.  It may be a primeval, instinctual desire to store fat for the long, lean winter months, or it may just be that everything tastes so good that you don’t want to stop eating it.

My garden is bursting with the fruits of my earlier labors.  I’m done with weeding and only need to water and pick on a regular basis.  The tomatoes are turning ripe daily, and Ichiban and White Star eggplant are plentiful.  beans are blooming endlessly, and the pumpkins are huge and orange.  Squash bugs failed to kill off my Yellow Butterstick squash, and I pick one or two a day.  There is more than I can eat, realistically.  There are still turnips and beets and parsnips to come, and my sweet corn is ripening slowly.  I have harvested cabbages throughout the last two months.  Only five or so remain of my original 16.  My orphaned plants – broccoli, kohlrabi, and pitiful cabbages, are slow and reluctant.  They may not produce anything for me after all.  It’s time to plant a few winter crops, but I don’t know if I’ll actually get to it.  Time is getting away from me, and our first frost will happen in about a month.  Maybe less.

Soon enough, there will be fluffy sweaters in the morning, cups of hot tea in the evenings, extra blankets on the beds, and golden aspen leaves turning in the wind like the coins on a belly dancer’s skirt.  Peaches will give way to apples drizzled in caramel, summer salads will give way to savory stews and soups, and nights will come early with a sharpness we have mostly forgotten over the long, warm summer.  But for now I will enjoy the smells, sounds, and tastes of summer.  And I will be thankful that a hot day in Colorado is still better than a hot day back in Missouri, where I grew up.  At least I can be outside here to enjoy summer, instead of having to be a hermit indoors.  I am getting plenty of Vitamin D!

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