Putting Away Summer

This weekend, Dad packed away with air conditioners that were harnessed during one hot week in June. And in the afternoon of one brisk, but sunny Saturday we covered the RV that made one quick trip around the block to test a new battery and a short drive to the garage to get the annual inspection. We spent more time blasting dead mouse stink out of the Rig this week than the entire summer. Before Dad threw the tarp over the carriage, I swabbed the roof of tree pitch and dead leaves. From my perch I listened to short tempered blue jays squabble over the sumac berries. Chipmunks, their tiny mouths packed so full of nuts and seeds look like they just returned from a painful trip to the dentist. From one dead tree branch to another woodpeckers harvested the last of the seasons insects.

During a walk around the block before escaping from what is inevitable – winter – I pulled the hood of my sweat shirt over my head. A raid on the neighbor’s raspberry patch where the occasional bumble bee drifted searching for nectar yielded a few berries summer forgot. In the brush behind Grey’s barn, a tangle of wild grapes offered a flavorful spike on my tongue, and a memory of afternoons after school drinking in the long rays before the Hadadorn’s Mountain enhaled the last warm breath from the air. Only then would I come home with a blue tongue and stained fingers.

It’s the color that spins yesterday in my head. Apricot, pumpkin and carrot. Plum, eggplant and beet. Cinnamon, nutmeg and mustard. But this year, like the economy, the feast is leaner. Even the trees that traditionally display God’s brilliance – the maples at the far end of Parkhurst Road – have yielded to a wet and cool summer.