Apples Ready To Harvest

The calendar notwithstanding, it’s fall in Oysterville!  The days are growing short, pears and apples are asking to be picked, the leaves are breaking free of their moorings.  Seems too early.  Labor Day is yet to arrive and here on the Peninsula, at least, school won’t open for another week.

But… spring and summer came early, too, this year.  From those April-blooming rhododendrons, a full three weeks ahead of themselves, right through an earlier-than-usual Kite Festival, our yearly timetable has seemed askew.

Fall Blow-down Begins

I’m so sorry that summer is over.  I don’t think I’m done with it yet.  There are still places to go and people to see and picnics to enjoy out in the garden.  Speaking of which… yikes!  I wonder if I can really put off fall cleanup for a little while yet.

Once again, I am reminded of the description my fourteen-year-old aunt wrote to a friend at just this time of year.  It was September 3, 1913:

We are having a regular winter storm. Do you know what a storm is? Not an Oysterville one.  You see, we get it from both the ocean and the bay.  The wind has already knocked the remainder of our cherry tree down; the cupboard of dishes in Sue’s playhouse toppled over and consequently she will have to abandon her house till next summer; a great piece of the trimmings of our house blew off; apples and pears litter the ground.  It is a real storm.  The bay is covered with white caps, the water has covered our lower meadow; and you could almost go down the lane leading from our house to the bay in a dinghy.  To cap it all, it has rained night and day since Monday evening in regular torrents.  It is not an unusual storm.  The natives merely remark, ‘Sort of wet today.’

Well, it hasn’t come to that yet – not this year anyway.  But still we have a few days to go…