Sustainable Saturday-The Icy Fingers of Fall

Yesterday, ice pellets mixed in with rain, in a mid-40's rain shower.  Today, at my son's house (about 20 minutes from us, in the Southern Tier of New York, it was just under 20 degrees.  Officially, we set a record for the date, of 26 degrees. 

Although we covered plants, we lost our dahlias, our basil and our marigolds.

At the Otsiningo Park Farmers Market, farmers sold the last of their frost-tender vegetables.  We bought our last green beans of the year.  Now, the farmers market will be down to apples, pears, winter squash, chard,and these favorites:  small white and orange mini-pumpkins, and Indian Corn.

Our thoughts go back to last Saturday, when we visited Ithaca, home of Cornell University.  A week ago and an age ago, when somewhat warm weather still favored us.  We knew the sun was getting weaker and weaker by the day, and it was a matter of time.  Time. Just a week ago, the Ithaca market still had

 beautiful, colorful peppers...

...watermelon radishes and black spanish radishes...

....and the gourds so many of us use to decorate.

But now early fall has been replaced by the icy fingers of fall.  As the temperatures dip into the teens for the first time, and ice pellets mix in with rain, we are reminded that it won't be long before our gardens are sleeping underneath a blanket of white.  Sometimes I wish that we humans could join our gardens, in a winter-long snooze that would end when the first buds start to swell next spring.

Goodbye, flowers.  Goodbye, warmth.  It is the natural way of upstate New York, but it doesn't mean I have to like it.  But accepting the cycle of nature is part of sustainable living.

 Today, I sigh.  Tomorrow, I will sip hot chocolate and put up the fall decorations.