10.09.20

NOAA weather discussion at the start of the week:

.DISCUSSION...And the beat goes on, yet again the Northern Rockies
will relish in a near perfect fall day. High temperatures will
flirt with record highs on Wednesday, along with light afternoon
breezes, and just a hint of haze creeping in for north central
Idaho late afternoon. Not much will change through the end of week
with the exception of increased west and southwest winds on
Thursday, and possibly haze and smoke increasing each day from
regional fires.

If smoke and haze do develop, never fear, a strong cold front on
Saturday will clear out the Northern Rockies. In addition, a
change from monotonously warm and dry weather to cool and wet will
occur.

Only a meteorologist would describe our Indian Summer days as “Monotonously warm and dry weather”. It has been glorious and feels like a gift from the gods to balance out the implosion in Washington, the dramatic rise in our local Covid cases, the collective anxiety which feels like a threatening storm barreling down upon us. Sarah and Nick were here for 24 hours last week-end, and I realized after they drove away, that in the time they were here, there was not a gripping in my stomach nor heaviness in my chest. They were a respite from my over-arching anxiety. We laughed, told stories, took a lovely Fall walk together, and it just felt like hope somehow.

The cold front predicted is moving in this morning with strong winds. I watched from the dock as Don and his friend sailed our boat south for winter storage. As the sails caught the wind, they heeled over dramatically, and I was glad to be on the shore, and very glad that Steve is an experienced sailor. It was a melancholy feeling to watch them disappear from view, a tiny white speck on this enormous lake. It’s another marker that summer is truly gone. Burger Town has put up their “Closed for the Season” signs and the Timbers Motel sign now reads “See you in the Spring.” The friendly Hutterite farmer, always in a black suit, who sets up a farmstand every Friday next to the carwash, said today that it was the final one for the season. He apologized to me that there were no more peaches left, and suggested I perhaps get another jar of his pickles, to enjoy over the winter season.

This is always how it feels in October. The season of farewells. It’s all so beautiful in the ‘dying time’, and I am looking forward to the rain, the brisk coolness of future days, the smell of woodsmoke in the fireplace, and making soup every night. I find comfort in John Muir’s words about the hopefulness in this season and how the ‘seeds all have next summer in them.’

In the yellow mist the rough angles melt on the rocks. Forms, lines, tints, reflections, sounds, all are softened, and although the dying time, it is also the color time, the time when faith in the steadfastness of Nature is surest… The seeds all have next summer in them, some of them thousands of summers, as the sequoia and cedar. In the holiday array all go calmly down into the white winter rejoicing, plainly hopeful, faithful… everything taking what comes, and looking forward to the future, as if piously saying, “Thy will be done in earth as in heaven!” John Muir