Soaking in the Sun

Autumn is my favorite time of year. As much as I love spring and renewing my love affair with my garden, I love the mellow, peaceful feel of autumn more. Spring is all about bustle -- vegetative explosions of color; preparing my bit of earth for another season of growth; hives awakening and building up; winter months of gestation finally giving birth. Autumn is more about settling in, settling down. I take stock of what grew well (or didn't), but I don't have to do anything about it for four or five months. Plants shut down, although there are always a few fruits or vegetables I try to nurse along until the cold snaps the growing season off. I don't have to be delicate about cleaning up the yard. I pull out the expired plants, put them in the compost pile, and let the ground (and me) rest for a season.

I haven't had time yet this fall to enjoy that mellowness. School started and everyone in my family started going six different directions a day, including me. I've hardly been outside in my yard to enjoy the moderate temperatures.

Today I picked all the peaches left on my O'Henry peach tree. It's a very late ripening tree and I have trouble discerning when the fruit is truly ripe. I finally decided this year that since half the fruit had fallen to the ground it was probably time to pick what remained. Seven and a half large bowlfuls later I stood looking around my yard and listening to the quiet. There were no children running around -- most were in still at school -- and since it was a weekday afternoon, there were no lawn mowers growling, no weed trimmers buzzing, no people sounds. I could hear birds and some crickets. Even my chickens quieted down.

After standing there mesmerized for a moment I decided this setting doesn't happen very often. I set aside my ambitious plans for other yard work, grabbed a book about honey bees my sister found for me in a lovely used bookstore in Portland, and plopped myself in a lawn chair with my feet up on another lawn chair. The air was a little cool in the shade, so I moved myself to have the sun at my back and be able to hold my book in the shade. After a few pages I set the book down and closed my eyes to listen some more.

I dozed instead. My hair and skin absorbed the just-warm-enough sun while my ears sopped up the stillness. My brain wound down, soaking in warmth and languor until it quietened.

I slowly came to a long while later, my brain gradually focusing on where I was. It has been a while since I felt so mentally refreshed. I hope the weather and this feeling stay with me. Mmmm.