I walk through the gateway to late fall. There is still time, the landscape tells me.
The last crickets still sing in the warmer evenings, and the last daddy longlegs huddle together in the woodpile. Mosquitoes still wait for prey near backwaters and puddles. Woolly bear caterpillars, most of them dark orange and black, still emerge in the sun.
White cabbage butterflies still look for cabbage. Yellow jackets still come out for fallen fruit. Water striders still hunt in the sloughs. A few honey bees still find the late asters, and moths emerge at night when the temperatures hold in the 60s.
The pears and silver maples, osage and white mulberries, zelcovas and sweet gums, beeches and Siberian elms still have their leaves. Throughout the fields and woods, the last autumn violets sometimes still bloom beside a few chicory, Queen Anne’s lace and mallow. Wild geraniums and thistles grow back.
Waterleaf is still spreading across the wetlands. Celandine can be blooming in the garden, along with a few dandelions, some roses, some chickweed, deadnettle and wild strawberries. Seeds sprout in rotting logs when the sun is hot. Sometimes a parsnip is ready to flower. Forsythia bushes sometimes bloom a second time.
There is still time to see them all.
This is Bill Felker with Poor Will’s Almanack. I’ll be back again next week with notes for the second week of late fall. In the meantime, take time to watch these days. There’s still time.
