Autumn

Autumn

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Ouch

Was the thought that came to mind when I sat down, early this afternoon, at a friends wedding party. The lawn chair was hot, the wind beyond warm, the air still and thick with humid vapors. I hate hot. Here it is One September, where if still in my beloved western mountains I'd have been out in the cool rain filled forest hunting Grouse.

Anyhow, I'm too darn worn out and ticked off and HOT, still, to write. Where is the Fall weather. I'm sick of the wait. I want cold....cold and wind and apple cider and the scent of oak on a slow burn in my fireplace. I want cool windy days. I want to see some friggin leaves drop and coat my yard like a carpet of yellow rust.



Here I sit with our air conditioner set at sixty-nine degrees and I want to see frost on the pumpkin.  I'm sick of three hundred dollar a month electric bills just so I can sleep, when sleep arrives. Stupid ceiling fan whirling away - what a waste.

Here we were, all gathered to honor a friend and his new wife, and all I can think about is perhaps a cold beer, slipped inside my trousers, might feel better than it should.

Perhaps I should leave the room.

Stephen 

18 comments:

  1. I've lived in the South all my life. Down here September is basically a summer month.

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    1. Born and raised here, Bob. I still hate hot. Only came home after the service....and the place was still hot...damn it. Thanks, my friend.

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  2. Party was nice...but yea it was a tad bit warm out there...

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    1. Was the party nice...oh, yes, it was. But, it was hot. Senior, I see, took our advice. Good for him. Sweet Wife passed out when we arrived home.

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  3. Northern NH. It's been in the mid 70s to the low 80s, but getting down to the high 40s and low 50s at night. Beautiful days in which to do things, but nice and cool for sleeping. Really love this time of year here.

    It's milder weather than when I was a kid. We've got at least one more good week like this before it turns cooler. By then the kitchen woodstove will be ready and I'll have some nice dry firewood piled up. Might have to fire up the stove to take the morning chill out by then.

    I love FL from January until about the middle of April. After that it's time to start making my way north.

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  4. Ah, Sixbears, how I envy you your northern weather. Enjoy it my friend.

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  5. poor sweet one....i don't know how you all can handle that heat all of the time! i'm a sugarplum - i would just melt!!! i love our kind of hot weather that we get at the end of august and beginning of september...it goes up to about 25C (about 77F) but we always have the cool ocean breeze too. that's my favourite kind of hot weather.

    your friend,
    kymber

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    1. Go ahead, make feel bad. I don't care if it's ninety-five outside. Sigh....

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  6. Congrats to your friend on his marriage.

    Things are still pretty sticky around here too, but we should be seeing some spin-offs from Isaac in the next couple days. That'll cool things down a bit.

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    1. It cools down here (no pun intended) about the end of October, a bit. Thanks, my friend.

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  7. Phyllis (N/W Jersey)September 2, 2012 at 8:24 AM

    Could not live in the flatlands. Gotta see and breathe the changing seasons. Sixbears is right - it has been a tad warmer than usual. The first scent of fall is still not in the morning air. Soon, though. The leaves are starting to fade from their dark green color and the garden is almost empty. Glad all had a good time with good friends!

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    1. Thanks, Dear Phyllis. I miss the seasons. I would have had fun but I just didn't feel well in the heat. Left early.

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  8. They should make a rule. If people have to dress up to go to weddings, at least the folks in Florida should have the courtesy to schedule them for fall, winter, or spring.

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  9. You've got that right my friend. I complain consistantly about the heat of the south. It makes me want to take lots and lots of naps. But then I wake up drenched in sweat because its still 99 degrees outside haha. However, the fall is peeking over the horizon, I can almost smell the breeze. Hang in there :)

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    1. I'm hanging, Pretty Girl. We agree on much...thanks, my dear. Tell your Dad hello for me.

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  10. I live in a log cabin in a pine woods on the East flank of the Cascades at 4200 feet. This morning I woke to 31 degrees and frost on my windshield. For the last three mornings I have had to start a fire in the wood stove just to take the coolness out of the room. We heat with wood, our only heat except when it really gets cold we turn the thermostat up in the bathroom overnight so the pipes don't freeze (well really so we can take a shower and not freeze). The coldest I have recorded in the house in the morning is 39. It takes about 2 hours for the stove to bring the room to about 60 degrees which we consider "warm" during the winter. I love to shovel snow but at 69 my wife wisely limits my shoveling so last fall I bought a snowblower. Some years we get 6 or 7 feet of snow on the ground and some years a mere 2-3. When the snow builds up deep enough we must go up on the roof and shovel. Not as dangerous as it sounds we have a shallow pitched roof that is easy to move around on and the edge of the roof is no higher the 8 feet off the ground. It takes the two of us about 3 days of intermittant shoveling to get all the snow off but often the snow keeps coming and when we are done it often looks like we never cleared it. I have 2 1/2 cords of wood just outside the door. It is adequate because we only heat our main room and we let the fire die down at night. I have 8 cords of wood in the yard under cover all split and stacked if I need it. I love the cold, the snow and our winter animal visitors. Coyotes occasionally, raccons, quail everyday (we feed them) squirrels, hawks, eagles, Geese and ducks and sometimes when we walk into the national forrest we find mountain lion tracks. So far we haven't seen a mountain lion but we have seen Lynx and ermine in the forest. The deer and elk are common in the warmer weather but move away when the deep snows come. The snow doesn't stop us we can drive our SUV's thru the snow if we don't feel like shovelling and we walk or snowshoe all winter. The only thing that keeps us from being able to get out is if we get a good melt followed by a freeze then it is too dangerous to walk any further then to the car. Winter is bread baking weather and the fall is when we do our canning. Tomorrow we will can apple sauce, apple butter and apples for pie filling. Around Thanksgiving we can usually get a turkey for about $0.18 a lb if you buy $50 in groceries. So we cook and then can the turkey. We typically get 7 quarts of turkey topped off with the broth we make and 4-7 quarts of broth. We do the same thing around Christmas so with 14 quarts of turkey and great broth we can enjoy Thanksgiving dinners anytime of year. I will sometimes bake potatoes inside the wood stove for dinner and cook the rest of the meal on the top in a dutch oven. I do this for practice and fun mostly but also because I'm cheap/thrifty and like to keep the electric bill under $40 a month. Every Fall we look forward to the Winter and the snow but by March we are really hoping for Spring. This year we had snow in early June, a very cold spring.

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    1. My friend, you bring back such wonderful memories for me...I once lived on the Western side of the Cascades. I too kept six to eight cords of wood for my old Jotel wood heater. I miss so much of that country; the salmon, elk and deer hunting, the grouse and the ability to lose myself in the mountains. Mostly, I miss my youth. Thank you for such a wonderful and well written comment. Please, don't be a stranger. God bless.

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