WHISPERS OF FALL

September -- one of my favorite and least favorite times of the year. People who move from other states to California say that the one thing they miss is the change of seasons. As a native Californian, I know our state has only two seasons -- wet and dry. The more traditional ones whiff by and can be missed unless you pay attention.

September at five in the evening is warm and still outside, not the suffocating, blazing hot of mid-day. The sun approaches a different position and casts shadows across long stretches of ground. Dust floats in the changing sunlight. The first redden Sycamore leaf drifts down to our deck, to join the Japanese maple seeds that cover the same area. Spiders have filled nooks with their webs and stretched their delicate-seeming threads from one post or leaf to another. 

With climate change, the dry, baking heat that makes the ground crack and your skin feel the same and that used to erupt during the first weeks of September, heated the air as early as June. We've had the hottest summer on record and fires started much earlier than usual. We listen in horror of the news yesterday that the Giant Sequoias in Sequoia National Park, thousands of years old, stand threatened by an out-of-control fire near them.

We notice other signs of fall. The yellow jackets come out and try to nibble at the edges of our picnic. We pick up our plates and hustle inside. At the top of the hill, we surprise a buck with four points crowning his head who crashes down the hill and out of our yard. We wonder at the glimpse we have of him. We think he must be down from the hills to find a mate. We rarely see bucks in our yard. Up the street, a Northern red oak's leaves shiver in the breeze as if they know that soon they will turn dark red and drop at the end of autumn.

I remember an editor of a home and garden magazine because she often wrote of her flourishing garden. Just before she retired, she wrote of pulling out her much-used herb knot garden because she didn't have the energy to tend it anymore. I was taken aback that she stop something she had prized for so long. My garden is also long gone due to the lack of adequate sunlight and the wildlife who loved it too much. I still keep pots of herbs though. The deer are repulsed by thyme and mint, so these herbs are sprinkled in pots through the garden. I've harvested my bunch of basil, whose scent fills the kitchen as I chop the leaves for pesto. I toast Ciabatta bread slices, give them a light coating of olive oil, spread the pesto on top, slice up some of my neighbor's tomatoes, scatter them on the pesto, and dust the top with grated parmesan. Those and avocado toast are tasty treats for this time of year.

The drawings I've been doing have changed too, from summer blooms to bulbs ready to be planted, acorns, harvested fruits and vegetables, and autumn leaves, a whisper of autumn in California.

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If you too are concerned about the Giant Sequoias, email President Biden and your state representatives to encourage them to commit as many resources as possible to contain the fire that is now raging around them.

To reach the President:

https://whitehouse.gov/contact/

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Last of summer's good reads:

 

What are your favorite books from this summer?

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Go to Filoli's Instagram account to see my post about a trip to Filoli as well as to see the beautiful gardens there: https://www.instagram.com/_filoli/