Well, that's it for my tomatoes. They froze last night.
It's autumn in Central Oregon. My mother, who grew up in Massachusetts, derides it. She says you can't tell the difference between the seasons out here.
True, we don't have a glorious display of color like you east coasters. If you want to really see the leaves change, you have to go out of your way -- you have to drive to Shevlin Park, or over one of the mountain passes. No, to sense autumn in Central Oregon, you have to pay closer attention.
The smell is different. The quality of the sunlight changes. It's still hot in the sun, but the shadows are longer and much cooler and, of course, the days are shorter. (When my husband takes the kids outside after work, he has to bring a backpack full of warm things that he piles onto them as they walk along. By the time they come back inside, their hands are freezing.)
The squirrels turn manic in the fall. The ponderosa in the middle of our back deck grows monumental pinecones which the squirrels decimate; they pull the nuts out, dropping each "leaf" of the pinecone onto the deck, and then they pitch the rest. Ka-thump. The sound on the roof is quite scary, and if you're on the deck when one of them falls -- well, God help you. The squirrels also grow braver and one will stand on the deck, sorting through the debris, while Sasha chatters at him from the other side of the screen door. One of her few multi-word sentences is, "Where'd the squirrel go?" asked with her palms upraised and her little eyes searching the tree limbs for a sign.
The Canadian geese have been practicing their formations and calling their particular autumn call; I haven't heard the doves in awhile (have I?); and there's a bird, which I do not think is a woodpecker but which does bang its head on the trees, that is making a new and very pretty sound.
And, of course, the neighborhood is silent during the day because the children are in school.
I love this time of year.
