Musings – on the editor’s mind

Meteorological fall arrived Tuesday, as it always does, on September first, but it journeyed here through the month of August. Its progress was daily measured, for weeks, by the ever lengthening tree, house and building shadows, cast by a sun no longer quite as high in the sky. That sun has retreated south from the northern most advance it forayed into in June. The incredibly long days starting with dawn before 5 a.m. are once again a hope we will have to wait to seek out in 2021.

How fast my summer went, and now how far behind us are the long, light filled evenings, with dusk lingering till 10 p.m. Not anymore. Now the lights need to come on before 8 p.m. That is the story of fall, days quickly growing shorter and the ever lengthening and seemingly darker nights.

There were several days of morning mist last week, the overcast bringing not so much damp but definitely cool weather. That was a tease, for the early cloud cover always lifted, as much as burning off.

Come 10 a.m. the sun’s warmth was suddenly present as it cast strong shadows on the ground and above the wide sky shone a bright blue.

That gift of the Pacific Northwest summer day came again, where morning mist or not, it seems, like Camelot, to never rain after sunup. Mt. Baker is again prominent on the northeastern horizon, a daily presence, bright white, however much gray its flanks show and whatever clouds dance around its head.

In three weeks the equinox will mark astronomical fall, with the dark after sunset lasting longer than 12 hours and the precious light subtracting into ever shorter days. Rains will come and also snow geese and trumpeter swans. Early lines of perhaps Canada geese have already made their appearance, assuring us that the season’s change is indeed upon us.

Summer is not over. The weather forecast tells us that and the coming hot weather will bring smiles to our faces. No, summer is not over. But, just as certainly, fall is on the way.