Something Told the Wild Geese: Feeling Winter in Summer

I started feeling it about a week ago. I think when full summer is finally here, and the garden is going bonkers. That's when I feel it. I start thinking about putting it all up, and wanting to wait...then I remember. Summer is just a fleeting thought here in our corner the world.

Sue in Maine

Yes.

I live in a very, very urban area but I still do a lot of canning and preserving, and I'm definitely feeling the itch to start getting ready for winter. Mid to late July is always when I start to realize that summer is (slowly) winding down.

We've been feeling this all summer, since it has never really warmed up here. Fruit trees are barren due to the cold, wet spring, and the garden is a month behind, and now the days are getting shorter...much too fast for me.

Instead of thinking of a warm season glut, I am worrying about the woodpile. Winter will be here soon.

"Eli's favorite poem"

Eli has excellent taste.

We need to replace our wood cookstove this year. Started working on it 6 days ago.

"perhaps an instinct, perhaps a habit born from a life of back to school planning - who knows"

We have a good indicator here; the "autumn crickets". We hear crickets and katydids all summer; but at the far end of summer another group of crickets kick in. Quite distinct from the earlier sounds; a solid chorus with no breaks. Not annoying, quite pleasant. They continue until a hard freeze; so it's usually August, September, and most of October; a solid association with autumn.

They started singing- about 6 days ago.

This:
And like the wild geese in my oldest, Eli's favorite poem, I can feel the tang of winter coming. When you live on a farm, and when you eat with the seasons, winter is always coming in a way - I order my Thanksgiving turkey in February, order the seeds potatoes for my Chanukah latkes just a month or so after we finish eating them, thin our autumn's apples in June, plant the beets and kale we'll eat in December in July.

is a very lovely snippet of writing in a very lovely and poignant and true larger post. Just that one line - "winter is always coming in a way" - ah.

Thank you for this, and for reminding me why I haul my ass out of bed early every Saturday to get to the farmer's market, to give my dollars to support the local farmers and eat seasonally, and thus more pleasurably and healthily, for me and the environment.

And yet...you can also feel next spring and summer, in the long blackberry canes and the summer apple pruning, in the daffodils gone dormant and the milkweed gone to seed.
One long never-ending dance; though our awareness of it will end, we will partake in other forms.
No canning here this year; I'm renovating the kitchen. Very exciting, if scary. Ought to be snug come winter, though, and thick with plants. Yay.

Hi Sharon!

There has been a definite shift with the bees as well. The focus has moved from increasing the numbers of bees in the hive to maintaining the numbers and increasing honey and pollen stores to get through the winter. The bees are also preparing for next spring- they will be starting to raise brood just as the first plants will be flowering and well before they are going out to forage regularly.

My dad says it's the way the leaves rustle. It happened at his house about a week ago. And when he told me I wailed, "Nooooo! That means February is coming." We are still not over last winter here in South Dakota. As my girlfriend says, "It was scarring." But as I watch the third batch of peas come in, I know it's going to be over soon. So I stand out in the garden on even the hottest days and soak it up for February.

That poem has been made into a very nice piece of choral music too. I sang it a couple of times in Jr and Sr high.

Good luck with the move decision. Never an easy one to make, and I feel for you.
-Jennie

Sharon,

The days are getting shorter. Perhaps more noticeable, is that the nights are getting longer, both the new moon and the full moon. Perhaps that change could be triggering the geese.

But it is also go-to-seed time for Johnson grass here, in a big way, and for other unplanned flora (um, weeds, that is). Perhaps the change in nutrients from the early spring rush of sugars and proteins finally crosses a tipping point for the geese. Perhaps the geese have merely been waiting for a bountiful harvest they can follow south, trading days of grazing for the rich seeds harvested from unplanned flora . . as well as raiding agribusiness crops.

But you have already been working and ordering for your winter garden; how could it not seem that you are halfway to making sure that extra blanket is in the car, that the emergency shovel and sand are ready in the car, and by the sidewalk? (I prefer sand for the sidewalk; it isn't that much slower than salt or other commercial products, won't hurt the sidewalk or poison the worms or planned flora.)

The school changes semesters in discrete chunks. Accountants tote up "quarters" in three-month chunks as if they were equivalent and identical. Live with livestock, garden, and field, and each day unique and changes, day by day. A rainy day is a time to consider whether to defend against or collect rain or water. A windy day is a time to consider the effect on drying grass, paint, or laundry. Clouds, aggregated over late summer and fall, can portend a harsh winter (less light lets more hair grow on the horse and hairy caterpillar, "magically" letting us guess that the accumulation of depressed energy will continue, and make much of the winter seem more "wintery"). For those that work in a cubicle or office, mostly weather is an impact on commute, or leisure activities. For the rest of us, we make our plans in abundance, putting forward each as we may, according to the day we embrace.

Doing chores in the early morning or evening lets you notice, daily, the splendor of the sky, the vagaries of temperature and temperature changes, the wind and weather, the moon - and how your critters and field and garden respond to these energies for growth or mayhem. Not only is harvest time ongoing, but winter is coming, and spring as well. The appreciation of today, as well as the place today stands in line from yesterday to tomorrow and the tomorrows beyond are precious opportunities.

As a wise man said, "Live long, and prosper!"

For me the signal of winter coming is the surprise lily flowers showing up. I don't know if you have them in your zone. They get leaves when the daffodils do and the leaves die when daff leaves die, but the flowers don't come up till around the end of July. They look a bit like small pink amaryllis flowers on bare-naked stalks. When I see them, I know we've hit late summer. Time to get the fall crops planted, the potatoes and other abundant summer crops harvested, stored, preserved.

Claire:
I've never heard them called "surprise lilies" before! I've heard them called "magic lilies" and "naked ladies." They're Lycoris squamigera, and yes, they're in the amaryllis family (as are daffodils).

And I saw some blooming yesterday.

For me, the end of season sign is when we start waking up in the dark at 5:30 AM. During much of May, early June, and into July, we have light at that time. Now we're still in the dark.

(An interesting aside; the ancient Celts divided the seasons not by equinoxes and solstices, or by average temperatures, but by day length. They therefore considered summer to be the months we call May, June, and July, because the daylight hours are longest during those three months. The Welsh name for July is Gorffennaf, which literally means "end of summer.")

My purple pole beans have bean pods on them! This is the first time I've had any success with beans. The leaves usually get eaten by bugs and they only produce one or two pods.

A beautiful post. Thank you for including the poem; it's one I've never read before.

And I, too, felt winter's breath a week ago, despite the record temperatures in our area. I've been drying foods and am starting to do the canning as well. No garden other than herbs since they are the only thing that will grow on the balcony, so all the produce comes from the farmer's market. A well-stocked pantry is like an extra blanket against winter's cold for me.

It's a conspiracy to make me (against my will) think about winter! Your post plus the fact that it's still dark when I get up and take the dogs out at 5:00 a.m. and now AccuWeather is posting their winter weather prediction tomorrow. sigh.

Sharon, I'm wondering about the possible downsides of living in the middle of an Amish community. There are several of these communities near where I live, and while the Amish are inoffensive and neighborly, I still feel uneasy about their pre-Enlightenment worldview. Do you think you would be able to develop the friendships that you have now? Would your children feel at home?

I admire many things about the Amish - their willingness to live simply, their and stewardship, their strong sense of community. But I don't think I would feel entirely comfortable making a home in one of their communities.

Canada geese around St. Louis don't seem to know about winter. They stay around all year long, and seem content to do so. It surprised me when someone pointed out that days get shorter during summer, and longer during winter.

Round here the leaves are turning in dry places (we've had a pretty impressive drought so far this summer), the pumpkins are swelling, dahlias are replacing sweetpeas, and the nights are drawing in. I made the obligatory "shopping days till Christmas" joke about a fortnight ago.

Although it's still summer, you need to be planning months ahead in the garden, so all the actual thinking I'm doing is about autumn jobs - at this point, the summer takes care of itself.