Keeping Watch

As October Passes By

By Dottie Evans

The only thing wrong with October, there’s just not enough of it.

––Jack Hemingway

October –– that other Most Beautiful Month besides May –– is almost one-third gone. Suddenly, the season is changing, turning over faster than we would like. There is much to see, and we don’t want to miss any of it.

Not a single late-migrating monarch butterfly wafting across an open field.

Not the full Hunter’s Moon rising on Friday night.

Not the tall purple New England asters lording it over the ubiquitous goldenrod.

Not bumblebees, loaded down with pollen and staggering over to just one more clover blossom.

Not those pesky, loud blue jays calling to each other, breaking the quiet of the autumn woods.

Certainly not the everlasting hope for a long Indian summer.

Hundreds of starlings are sitting on a wire, each one separated from its neighbor by four inches of personal space. They are chattering, while they wait for the signal to go.

In a wavering “V,” Canada geese are flying high overhead, honking. Already, they are on their way.

The robins have left the neighborhood, flocking south. Gone. Junco, also called snowbirds, are arriving from the north, looking forward to winter.

Japanese maple leaves are changing from dark green to bronze to fiery red. By November 1, they will drop in a heap on the ground.

A preying mantis keeps watch in the garden, but he barely moves.

Light frosts appear at dawn and a film of ice floats in the birdbath. They say a real, hard frost is due any day now. According to The Old Farmer’s Almanac, the first killing frost may come to Connecticut any time between October 10 and 24.

We know we’ve got to harvest those last tomatoes, bring in the geraniums, put on the storm windows, hang the birdfeeders, and start cutting wood. But we would rather dawdle in the October sunshine.

Try as we might, we can’t take it all in. Not in one year. Maybe not even in a lifetime.

So we’ll let the clock and the calendar worry about time passing. Instead, we’re headed outside to soak up those sun-filled October days. They are meant to warm us against what comes next.