A is for Autumn.
September 24, 2015 3:14 PM Subscribe
Yeah, it's fall alright. It only got up to 92F/33C today here in Texas. What a relief!
posted by jim in austin at 3:33 PM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by jim in austin at 3:33 PM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Yay for autumn! One day closer to the blessed rain.
posted by suelac at 3:42 PM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by suelac at 3:42 PM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Fall in Florida:
90 degrees and humid.
Tropical storm on the way up from the Gulf, might become a hurricane.
Cooler air?
Sweaters?
Bwa-hahahahahahahaha!
Carry on.
posted by Splunge at 3:47 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
90 degrees and humid.
Tropical storm on the way up from the Gulf, might become a hurricane.
Cooler air?
Sweaters?
Bwa-hahahahahahahaha!
Carry on.
posted by Splunge at 3:47 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
I love Autumn ('cause I love my sweaters) I'd be giggly happy, though, if we could jump straight from Autumn to Spring and skip entirely that gray, morose shitfest called Winter.
Oh, and, Fall Equinox up here in Indiana? Sunny and in the low 80's.
Don't forget about the SuperMoon this weekend, kids!
posted by Thorzdad at 3:51 PM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Oh, and, Fall Equinox up here in Indiana? Sunny and in the low 80's.
Don't forget about the SuperMoon this weekend, kids!
posted by Thorzdad at 3:51 PM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
99 where I am in SoCal and that's a relief from the previous week. Rrrrrr.
Every time I've been to Montreal to visit family it's been in the fall (all the colors!), and coming back to another goddamn blazing hot day after that is almost physically painful. I cannot wait until we move somewhere with actual seasons, because autumn is the best and I'm dying from all this stupid sunshine.
SO STUPID.
posted by erratic meatsack at 3:54 PM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Every time I've been to Montreal to visit family it's been in the fall (all the colors!), and coming back to another goddamn blazing hot day after that is almost physically painful. I cannot wait until we move somewhere with actual seasons, because autumn is the best and I'm dying from all this stupid sunshine.
SO STUPID.
posted by erratic meatsack at 3:54 PM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Autumn is great! Of course, it actually begins the first time I wear a cardigan outdoors, so it hasn't started yet.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 4:10 PM on September 24, 2015
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 4:10 PM on September 24, 2015
Sorry, haters, there are some lovely chilly nights already happening up here in Southern Ontario as well as days that are still warm but not back home in the South warm. The leaves haven't turned yet though.
(I too wish we could just skip winter altogether. Ugh. NO THANK YOU.)
posted by Kitteh at 4:11 PM on September 24, 2015
(I too wish we could just skip winter altogether. Ugh. NO THANK YOU.)
posted by Kitteh at 4:11 PM on September 24, 2015
At the back of the paper, ignominiously sandwiched between Pip and Pop, the Bedtime Pets, and the recipe for a dish called "Waffle Scramble," lay the bi-weekly half-column devoted to Nature:posted by Gerald Bostock at 4:19 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
LUSH PLACES, edited by William Boot, Countryman.
"Do you suppose that's the right one?"
"Sure of it. The Prime Minister is nuts on rural England."
"He's supposed to have a particularly high-class style: 'Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole' ... would that be it?"
"Yes," said the Managing Editor. "That must be good style. At least it doesn't sound like anything else to me."
Autumn, for me at least, means foraging, colours, cooler weather and quieter walks.
I've really gotten into foraging for free food this year, and Autumn is pretty much the best time to be doing it because there's so much food available. I've harvested about 20lbs of blackberries, over 10lb of damsons, only a couple of lbs of cherry plums, half a dozen apples and several mushrooms this year, all within about a mile of my house. That's without really trying very hard. These are just things I've noticed when I've been out walking.
At this time of year, it gets colder and damper in the UK, so only hardcore walkers tend to be out and about - those of us who have a passion for it, and dog walkers. Lots of the local paths are pretty quiet at the height of the season, mainly because I'm in a pretty industrialised area, but right now I can walk for a couple of hours without seeing another soul. On the odd occasion I see someone else, a quiet nod and no stopping to chat is the order of the day when Fido is getting his walkies. People don't want to be out in the weather.
I can't wait for the snow to come. I always get a little thrill following the lone tracks of another person and their dog through the snow. I wonder if this is their normal route, or whether they took a shortcut and headed back to the warmth of the car as soon as they could. Just me and that other, long gone person have walked this way today. A way to connect with someone who isn't there.
I found a fallen Ash tree the other week, covered in Cramp Balls, a bushcrafter's delight. The tree was huge, but now lay rotting, a short way from the path. The fungus takes a spark very well and burns like charcoal, particularly when dry. They burn with a quite pleasant scent, almost like incense. I'd been looking for this fungus for a while, and finding this particular outcrop was quite exciting. Even more so when you consider it's about 500 yards away from where I'm sitting.
I hate walking in hot weather. Walking in cooler weather means I can regulate my temperature better. I walk at quite a clip (family trait) which means I get overheated quite quickly. Colder weather means I can move at a comfortable pace without overheating. There's a sycamore tree on the way to a place I used to work at that has a damaged branch, which always changes colour much earlier than the rest of the tree. I like to think of it as the harbinger of The Cold.
posted by Solomon at 4:21 PM on September 24, 2015 [17 favorites]
I've really gotten into foraging for free food this year, and Autumn is pretty much the best time to be doing it because there's so much food available. I've harvested about 20lbs of blackberries, over 10lb of damsons, only a couple of lbs of cherry plums, half a dozen apples and several mushrooms this year, all within about a mile of my house. That's without really trying very hard. These are just things I've noticed when I've been out walking.
At this time of year, it gets colder and damper in the UK, so only hardcore walkers tend to be out and about - those of us who have a passion for it, and dog walkers. Lots of the local paths are pretty quiet at the height of the season, mainly because I'm in a pretty industrialised area, but right now I can walk for a couple of hours without seeing another soul. On the odd occasion I see someone else, a quiet nod and no stopping to chat is the order of the day when Fido is getting his walkies. People don't want to be out in the weather.
I can't wait for the snow to come. I always get a little thrill following the lone tracks of another person and their dog through the snow. I wonder if this is their normal route, or whether they took a shortcut and headed back to the warmth of the car as soon as they could. Just me and that other, long gone person have walked this way today. A way to connect with someone who isn't there.
I found a fallen Ash tree the other week, covered in Cramp Balls, a bushcrafter's delight. The tree was huge, but now lay rotting, a short way from the path. The fungus takes a spark very well and burns like charcoal, particularly when dry. They burn with a quite pleasant scent, almost like incense. I'd been looking for this fungus for a while, and finding this particular outcrop was quite exciting. Even more so when you consider it's about 500 yards away from where I'm sitting.
I hate walking in hot weather. Walking in cooler weather means I can regulate my temperature better. I walk at quite a clip (family trait) which means I get overheated quite quickly. Colder weather means I can move at a comfortable pace without overheating. There's a sycamore tree on the way to a place I used to work at that has a damaged branch, which always changes colour much earlier than the rest of the tree. I like to think of it as the harbinger of The Cold.
posted by Solomon at 4:21 PM on September 24, 2015 [17 favorites]
I had a delicious graham cracker drink at Starbucks today. It made me feel better about autumn, especially since I can't stand pumpkin spices.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:49 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:49 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
look okay if autumn isn't your favourite season you are wrong and bad and also probably aT LEAST stalin
posted by poffin boffin at 5:33 PM on September 24, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 5:33 PM on September 24, 2015 [7 favorites]
SWEATERS! SWEATERS! SWEATERS!!
posted by Fizz at 5:34 PM on September 24, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by Fizz at 5:34 PM on September 24, 2015 [5 favorites]
It's still not under 70 degrees here at night in my neighborhood in LA, so all this just makes me super angry. I would be fine with it being in the 80s during the day, if only it would cool down at night, but NO. I don't anticipate pulling out my actual comforter/duvet until late November. It'll just never be cold again, I guess, this is how we live now
posted by yasaman at 5:35 PM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by yasaman at 5:35 PM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
honestly though i am, for the only time thus far in my life, glad that it is still pretty hot out at the end of september because i still have no fucking windows and it's getting a little fucking brisk on my couch.
posted by poffin boffin at 5:39 PM on September 24, 2015
posted by poffin boffin at 5:39 PM on September 24, 2015
look okay if autumn isn't your favourite season you are wrong and bad and also probably aT LEAST stalin
Autumn is great but winter... winter is the tits. I honestly believe that something happened to adults who hate snow and winter so they are just kinda dead inside.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:50 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Autumn is great but winter... winter is the tits. I honestly believe that something happened to adults who hate snow and winter so they are just kinda dead inside.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:50 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
I love the winter for so many reasons, one of which is of course because so many other people hate it and the suffering of others is delicious to me. But then slush happens and i'm like NO BRING BACK THE FESTIVE GOURDS
posted by poffin boffin at 5:55 PM on September 24, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 5:55 PM on September 24, 2015 [7 favorites]
Everything's dying, what's not to like
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 6:17 PM on September 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 6:17 PM on September 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
I'll take "Worst titles with which to start a gritty reboot of the Kinsey Millhone books" for a thousand, Alex.
posted by officer_fred at 6:24 PM on September 24, 2015
posted by officer_fred at 6:24 PM on September 24, 2015
I came here to complain about my seasonless exile in the tropical Pacific, but I see that it's still hot as balls for many of you on the mainland as well. I'll have to settle with being envious of whenever it does bother to cool off out there.
posted by deadbilly at 6:50 PM on September 24, 2015
posted by deadbilly at 6:50 PM on September 24, 2015
I honestly believe that something happened to adults who hate snow and winter so they are just kinda dead inside.
Yeah, two polar vortices in a row + severe Vitamin D deficiency as a result of getting approx 8 minutes of weak sun/day (through a haze and then a window) for months and months, which might have made some of us lose our minds thinking we were losing our minds. No PSL is going to make up for that.
posted by cotton dress sock at 7:12 PM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Yeah, two polar vortices in a row + severe Vitamin D deficiency as a result of getting approx 8 minutes of weak sun/day (through a haze and then a window) for months and months, which might have made some of us lose our minds thinking we were losing our minds. No PSL is going to make up for that.
posted by cotton dress sock at 7:12 PM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
(I can't be the only one who took winter 2014 personally)
posted by cotton dress sock at 7:21 PM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by cotton dress sock at 7:21 PM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
The energy and appetite and clearheadedness I get back at autumn's arrival are probably as close as I will ever get to an actual superpower. There's a line I've heard attributed to Spalding Gray: "When will it get cold so I can put on a sweater and think?" I feel like that. I'm a sniffy, grumpy, stupid foreigner in summer.
The first time it's actually chilly in my apartment when I wake up, some reluctant bit of me that's been hiding or slumbering all summer also wakes up, and I think: Whew, I made it!
posted by miles per flower at 7:21 PM on September 24, 2015 [8 favorites]
The first time it's actually chilly in my apartment when I wake up, some reluctant bit of me that's been hiding or slumbering all summer also wakes up, and I think: Whew, I made it!
posted by miles per flower at 7:21 PM on September 24, 2015 [8 favorites]
The maples started changing up on South Fork three weeks ago. The hay lay in serpentine stripes, drying for baling. Afterwards fine horses wandered the leavings, staying close together as if they knew their own beauty, black and brown silhouettes touching the ground. I picked enough elderberries for 17 pints of jam, now I am after apples. I cut plum limbs into firewood after the fencing guys took them down. It is all laid in for fall fires. It is cool at night and the sky is deep blue now. Fall is the time of side shadows starting, and soon they will run out blue, over smooth snow, sparkle snow, rumpled snow, the million tiny branches traced out over the world, the supreme calligraphy of silent, white, mountain sides. At the market last week they said the peaches are done. I haven't been able to bring myself to fish, yet. I confess I have been hell on melons of late. Ummm fall. If only I had it in me to have a man whose sweater I could borrow. Fall puts me in mind of what and who is missing, and those who left us behind to live some more, while they made good on their escape.
posted by Oyéah at 7:37 PM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Oyéah at 7:37 PM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
IT'S AUTUMN! I'M GOING TO SIOUX FALLS SD! I FUCKING LOVE LIFE!
so, uh, yeah, and how's your autumn going?
posted by evilDoug at 8:29 PM on September 24, 2015
so, uh, yeah, and how's your autumn going?
posted by evilDoug at 8:29 PM on September 24, 2015
I am privileged to live in a remarkably beautiful part of the planet, and I'm grateful for that, but autumn is not its finest hour.
By the time September begins there are (quite literally) thousands of dead and decaying salmon strewn along the banks of any signficantly-sized stream, including the ones that run through town, so the aroma of rotting fish is an omnipresent sensory backdrop.
Around the middle of September, equinoctial storms start blowing in from the Gulf of Alaska, and by the beginning of October, rain is the default weather -- the biggest question is whether it will be a gentle drizzle or sheets of bone-chilling, wind-driven, sideways rain.
Meanwhile, the length of the days is changing rapidly -- each day is noticeably shorter than the last, and when it comes you feel the end of Daylight Savings Time like a blow -- suddenly, if you work a typical day job, it's dark when you go to work and dark again by the time you finish and if there's a break in the rain you might get to see the sun on the weekend.
It takes a bit of getting used to.
Also with the last of the season's salmon run being hotly sought after by the wildlife, and with it getting dark earlier and more suddenly (through the combination of season and weather conditions..) you want to keep alert. Friday night, returning from a card game at a friend's house, walking up the shared public stairs that provide access to my house I met a bear coming down the stairs. Fortunately he (or possibly she, we were not properly introduced) was a well-raised young bear with proper manners and yielded to his elder. But.. beware of stair bears, that's all the advice I have to offer on the subject..
Fortunately I leave for a conference in Montreal in a week and will get to experience some of their lovely autumn, because I do miss a proper fall. It can be one of my favorite times of year. But not in Southeast Alaska.
posted by Nerd of the North at 10:41 PM on September 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
By the time September begins there are (quite literally) thousands of dead and decaying salmon strewn along the banks of any signficantly-sized stream, including the ones that run through town, so the aroma of rotting fish is an omnipresent sensory backdrop.
Around the middle of September, equinoctial storms start blowing in from the Gulf of Alaska, and by the beginning of October, rain is the default weather -- the biggest question is whether it will be a gentle drizzle or sheets of bone-chilling, wind-driven, sideways rain.
Meanwhile, the length of the days is changing rapidly -- each day is noticeably shorter than the last, and when it comes you feel the end of Daylight Savings Time like a blow -- suddenly, if you work a typical day job, it's dark when you go to work and dark again by the time you finish and if there's a break in the rain you might get to see the sun on the weekend.
It takes a bit of getting used to.
Also with the last of the season's salmon run being hotly sought after by the wildlife, and with it getting dark earlier and more suddenly (through the combination of season and weather conditions..) you want to keep alert. Friday night, returning from a card game at a friend's house, walking up the shared public stairs that provide access to my house I met a bear coming down the stairs. Fortunately he (or possibly she, we were not properly introduced) was a well-raised young bear with proper manners and yielded to his elder. But.. beware of stair bears, that's all the advice I have to offer on the subject..
Fortunately I leave for a conference in Montreal in a week and will get to experience some of their lovely autumn, because I do miss a proper fall. It can be one of my favorite times of year. But not in Southeast Alaska.
posted by Nerd of the North at 10:41 PM on September 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
This is basically me right now. I love autumn. Been sleeping with the windows open, and I feel rested for the first time since like March. Love mugs of tea, cardigans, crisp morning runs, ALL THE APPLES, being able to wear my hair down without it forming some kind of lion's mane around my face. Leggings, the smell of crunchy fallen leaves (that aren't very colorful this year due to the lack of rain, but still pretty). Soup, cooking/baking delicious warm things. Sweating only when I'm actually supposed to be sweating. Smaller pores. Pumpkins and squash and Halloween candy and both decorative and function scarves. And cider donuts. This is my absolute favorite time of year and I'm not ashamed to be a meme because Fall is amazing and always goes by so fast. I also have 30 apples in my fridge right now and it's not enough apples. If I could hoard autumn I totally would. But I can't hug every pumpkin :\
posted by raztaj at 4:51 AM on September 25, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by raztaj at 4:51 AM on September 25, 2015 [5 favorites]
(I can't be the only one who took winter 2014 personally)
I definitely did but I also have a couple of friends in Boston and their suffering quickly became comical and mine nonexistent in comparison.
posted by poffin boffin at 10:24 AM on September 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
I definitely did but I also have a couple of friends in Boston and their suffering quickly became comical and mine nonexistent in comparison.
posted by poffin boffin at 10:24 AM on September 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
When in doubt, schadenfreude it out, I like it
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:35 PM on September 25, 2015
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:35 PM on September 25, 2015
That doesn't make sense, I've got zero doubt about my misohibernia. Anyway, I get your point & it's good.
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:37 PM on September 25, 2015
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:37 PM on September 25, 2015
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