Decades ago, the poet T.S. Eliot told us April was the
cruelest month. For years, I’ve accepted his word on this without question. After
all, her weather is a bit more than schizophrenic, switching from balmy spring
breezes to stinging ice pellets in a matter of hours.
After this past Saturday, I’m thinking September may beat my
birth month out for this title. How do we go from stunning 90 degree temps one
week, late summer blooms, happy butterflies and jewel-toned hummingbirds
fattening themselves on autumn –tinged nectar to curled and blackened leaves
and no lovely creatures flitting from one blossom to another overnight?
In less than a fortnight during early September, Mother
Nature switched gears on her big and little darlings. Humans replaced shorts
and t-shirts with slacks and sweaters. Some turned on furnaces to burn off that
early morning chill caused by temperatures in the 30s. Unfortunately, birds and
insects caught mid-migration didn’t have the same options people had to adapt
to this harsh change.
Within 24 hours, weather that had provided a lush fall
banquet for flying creatures sent any still moving to fly south as fast as
their wings could carry them. Unfortunately, some were either too busy eating
to pay attention to the shift in the barometer, or they just didn’t get going
fast enough. I don’t know the answer. However, after that tomato-killing frost,
I saw monarchs with wings like stained glass windows frozen to death, their
bodies flattened on the ground beneath their last perches.
Recent autumns have spoiled me into believing the first
frost wouldn’t come until after the beginning of October. Though I’d noticed a
slow-down and smaller sizes in tomato production, I assumed we had at least a
month before we had to worry about Jack Frost swooping into our yard with his
chilling crystals. I was sure the Weather Channel frost advisories were just apocalyptic
hype sometimes promoted by the media because it draws ratings. Even my husband,
who reads weather better than most, thought the meteorologists were crying
wolf.
While covering my tomatoes might have lengthened their
season by a couple of weeks, nothing I could have done would have saved either
the two little hummers frequenting our plastic feeders or the butterflies still
flitting from one zinnia or cosmos blossom to another where they extended their
curling tongues to taste one last bit of Kansas summer.
Fall is a still my favorite season, but Mother Nature has put me on notice that I can’t
count on enjoying weeks and weeks of bird and butterfly watching. I’m wondering
how long we have before we see only stark skeletons of once fully dressed
trees. She may also be telling me that this winter will be a bit rougher than
those in the past were. Perhaps I better prepare better for this and stock up
on sunflower seeds and suet blocks to feed overwintering birds.
