This week’s column was originally going to focus on the daily changes I’ve been seeing in these woods the last few weeks. But I’ve had to alter my course and work in the fact that October 2011 will most likely go down in the meteorological records as the month when leaves and snowflakes collided.
One day last week, I dragged the garden bench around to the north-facing side of the shed. There’s a particularly inspiring trinity of tree tops there that are best appreciated by standing (or sitting) beneath them and looking straight up. Two are maples ”“ one a fiery red and the other a brilliant yellow, and the third is an oak still decked out in its burnt-sienna finery. Together, their tops paint quite a picture, branches overlapping and leaves shimmering as would the color chips in a kaleidoscope. I positioned the bench directly beneath them and spent several languorous moments looking up and also across the yellow sea of poplar and witch hazel leaves that still draped the hillside.
This year’s leaf drop was no different than any other, or so I thought at the time. While it did seem that the leaves were taking a bit longer than usual to fall off, it began as it usually does, one leaf at a time, then a few more. But the expected cascade, when the wind kicks in and knocks most of them down, never came. What did come was snow, large wet snowflakes mingling with maple and oak leaves that began late last Saturday and continued into midday on Sunday.
For weeks, I’d been watching bits of color gathering on the still-green grass in the back yard as each leaf joined the others. And I’d also been hearing weather forecasters speak of the year’s strange weather, though I couldn’t think of an instance when I would have deemed the weather unusual except for Hurricane Irene. But even then, hurricanes are common in these parts during August and September. Snow, however, is not. I do recall as a child seeing a light snowfall in October that derailed our anticipation for Halloween and made it feel more like we should be looking forward to Christmas instead. After all, that sharp clear white smell that precedes a snowstorm isn’t typical just before All Hallow’s Eve, while the scent of dried leaves and smoky fires are.
By late afternoon on Saturday, both leaves and flakes had begun their strange statement to the point where, as night came on, it became impossible to distinguish between them. When I shoveled the porches off on Sunday, I realized that it was the first time I’d ever scraped them both off together. Normally, I notice the transition from sweeping leaves to scraping snow, as the seasons make their imperceptible shift around this time. But there was no such progression this year. Very strange.
Another unusual sight was the thick, wet, slushy snow dotted with hundreds of brownish-yellow depressions created by the leaf-stained snow clumps that had fallen from the trees during the night. If I hadn’t known better, I could have sworn someone was running across the roof all night ”¦
It’s Monday now, the power is back on, and, while it’s still a bit unsettling to see snow on the ground in October, life is back to normal again, if there is such a thing. Once again, the wood stove proved to be a boon as far as heat and sustenance were concerned, but I was hard-pressed to find things to do by lamplight for very long. It’s nearly 50 degrees out today, and I think I heard someone say something about rain in the extended forecast.
I wonder how many more leaves will have fallen by then and if there will be enough of a wind to finish the job. Or will 2011 go down in history as the “Year the Leaves Forgot to Fall”?
Strange, indeed.
— Rachel Lovejoy, a freelance writer living in Lyman, can be reached via e-mail at rlovejoy84253@roadrunner.com.
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