The arrival of fall has turned Humptulips County into a climatic war zone. Even as I write I can hear thunder in the distance and rain is falling regularly as it has been for the last three days. This is not a gentle rain; it is a hard, drenching rain of the stuff of legend. As a consequence of its determination, the rivers are running as high as the winds are blowing hard. The farm is very wet. It is a good thing that I finished mowing the pastures last Thursday, for I would likely get the tractor mired in the low spot in the western pasture were I to try to do so now. The weatherman did see this storm coming and sent us ample warning.
It’s amazing how our weather went from that of gentle summer to a semi-apocalyptic fall in a matter of hours. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a dramatic shift in the seasons unless it was during those long gone days I spent in Ann Arbor where spring typically comes and goes in a matter of a few days. It is certainly unusual to fall off such a weather cliff here in the Pacific Northwest, and I have to wonder if this is a portent of things to come courtesy of global warming.
For now, we are safe and warm. The night was somewhat cold courtesy of a power outage that lasted several hours, but our power is back on now and I am once again able to choose to ignore the rain or to sit in a convenient window and watch it fall. I can exercise this conscious choice today, for there won’t be any outdoor chores to perform unless a drain clogs up sufficiently that clearing it is preferable to the resulting flooding. That may prove to be a hard call if it happens, for this is a day to stay indoors and to leave the weather to its work.
There is something melancholy in a fall rain, something that draws the eye and feeds our reservoirs of memory. And our present rain, as hard and as persistent as it is, may prove more melancholy than most, for it has already denuded much of the Virginia Creeper in our turnaround, making me believe that any walks in appreciation of autumn’s foliage must be taken somewhat in haste this year for it may well be that this year’s season of color will be truncated. It isn’t fair to say, as some have, that fall has been skipped this year and winter has already arrived, for the temperature belies that notion. But it is fair to say that if the rain continues in this way for too much longer, the leaves will fall before they usually do, may well fall even before they turn color.
I hope the leaves survive to burst into color, for there is glory in the radiance of a bright fall day when the leaves have turned, enough glory to fill the soul’s fuel tank to bursting, to give us sufficient fuel to carry on until Spring. For by themselves, winter’s bright, hard, cold, inspirational days come at insufficient intervals to keep the tank full. They are only additive to its depth; their occurrence is never sufficient to top it off, only to replace some lost hope with their wonder. It takes a heavy dose of fall colors to give the soul’s fuel tank the depth it needs to keep us all safe from despondency until Spring, to allow us to endure sailing winter’s customary overcast in which those bright cold days infrequently emerge as if islands of clarity, as if tropical islands in the depths of the southern Pacific Ocean.
So I will watch and wonder today, wonder if these rains will be strong enough to leach away the colors from this fall.
