Turn, Turn, Turn: The Year-Round Seasons Thread

wtf is summer lol?

Wait, what? The schools started on August 2nd??

It's been absolutely perfect here the last two days -- high around 82, no humidity, gentle breezes...  We opened the house up when I got home from work yesterday, and in the evening light the cicadas were getting quieter and there were kids playing somewhere further down the street so it had that soft, slightly melancholy vibe of early fall.  Like it was the waning moments of summer.  Which is the best possible combination with it actually not being the waning moments of summer!  Feels like fall, but I still get half-day Fridays!!

This morning Hugs and I went to the track for a walk, because it was so marvelous out.  The grass on the embankment down to the track from the sidewalk was fairly unkempt and there was a heavy dew.  Man, did it ever feel like we were a month ahead of ourselves when my ankles got all wet from the dew, and it was actually cold!

Going by the official Old Dick n Hisses Manor Farmer's Almanac, summer is officially over, as of Monday.  We are now in the (strangely not universally recognized) season called Back To School.  This season is marked by the following characteristics:

-- A noticeable change in the angle of the sun from High Summer.
-- A nostalgia for buying new outfits and new school supplies.
-- Short-timing it in anticipation of our annual vacation for Hugs's birthday (also, Labor Day), although your mileage on this one may vary.
-- The first, premature signs of fall.

With regards to that last item, we have an overachieving maple up the street from our house, which is always terrifically eager to burst into a riot of the full autumn spectrum at the first chance.  In the morning, when the sun is shining on it, it already has about 30% of its branches in "Full Fall" mode.  Sadly, in the evening, like when I was at that end of the street with a camera, it isn't nearly as well illuminated, so it kinda looks mostly green.  But you can sort of get the idea here -- 


Don't get me wrong, though.  We're in the middle of a sweltering heat wave with no end in sight.  Even going by the Old Dick n Hisses Manor Farmer's Almanac, we don't expect any actual fall fall weather for another two months.  BUT STILL.  This photo was taken this past Sunday.  THIS IS NOT A DRILL.  

Still hot as balls here. I'm hoping it cools down some by the time we hit Orlando in late September.

It's Sunday evening about 8:30. I'm out in the hammock. It's wonderfully cool, almost chilly even. The crickets are chirping and I have some music on. I'm starting to make the mental adjustment to getting ready for fall. I have to be careful because I tend to get depressed each year when I first think of summer ending, but I really love fall after it arrives. The weather right now is wonderful. I wouldn't mind if we had three or four months of weather like this.

I'm thirding the vote for this kind of weather.  We're getting it today -- high if 80, lows overnight in the 50's (!!!!), clear and dry and beautiful.  They sky is dotted with cheerful fluffy clouds, and it's just perfect out there.  It was heavy, hot, and rainy yesterday, so we didn't have the house open, but tonight promises a chilly evening with an extra blanket on my bed.  YAY!!!

Of course, it's supposed to return to our regularly-scheduled August on Wednesday, but I'll enjoy this whisper of "fall is coming" while I can.

It was actually almost but not quite cool this morning. Yay!

Last night I took the dog out and smelled a wood-burning fire and immediately wanted apple cider and a hayride.

We had a wood-burning fireplace in the finished basement of our house since we moved into it 28 years ago, so I grew up hauling in firewood and creatively swearing at the log-starters. It was fantastic until 2 years ago, when for some reason all of our wood - my dad and brother would go cut it down with a family friend who also had a fireplace (and a giant pick-up truck) - which was already seasoned just simply refused to ignite, even if we left it inside to dry for several days. And it was balls cold outside, which meant that the finished basement was cold as it's partially subterranean. My parents were planning on switching to gas soon anyway, as there's always been a hookup in the hearth, but this tipped them over. It got to the point where we were wearing bathrobes and blankets to watch TV. 

Of course, there was that long 4-day weekend between having the old insert removed and getting the new gas fireplace when we found out that having a blanket duct-taped to the bricks in front of the gaping hole was not, in fact, a sufficient barrier between air coming in through the chimney and our basement. I have never been so cold while indoors in my entire life. Not even at an ice rink!

I really miss the smell of our old fireplace, but I don't miss having to go outside in the freezing cold and drag wood inside, or having to open the windows because the flue backed up and started filling the basement with smoke, or being super paranoid about making sure the doors were securely shut before leaving the room. I love that I can press a button and within 10 minutes, the room is warm and toasty. And I have friends with wood-burning fireplaces, so I get my fix from them nowadays.

It's going up to regular August weather in the upper 80s today and through next week, but the morning was cool and pleasant. Fall is just around the corner!

I could NEVER have my own wood-burning fireplace*, because I'm WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too paranoid about burning my house down.  So, yeah, I enjoy smelling my neighbors' chimney smoke when I go outside in the winter, and that's the end of it.  


*Actually, we have a wood-burning fireplace in our living room, now that I think about it, but the chimney is in a state of utter disrepair, so even if we wanted to use it we couldn't.  I kind of forget about it, because it's just, like, a dead-hole in the middle of the wall there.  I'd personally like to have it walled over, because it takes up an annoying amount of space and makes it tricky to arrange the furniture functionally.  But having a mantel is nice, so I guess I can't complain too much...

Thing you can do with the fire place is to put candles in there, and that way if they drip wax it's no big deal.

Some friends of mine decided a few years ago to heat their whole house for the winter with their wood stove.  I guess they were doing something with furnace fans and whatnot -- I never really figured out what the deal was to be able to get the whole house warmed by just the stove in their family room, but whatever.  (I think part of the deal was that they were willing to have fairly chilly bedrooms upstairs.)  The impetus for this?  Hurricane Sandy's aftermath.  There was so much free lumber lying around everywhere that they figured it was worth trying.  

I'm going to go back to Virginia for a visit right in the middle of Fall and I'm so excited. Nowhere in the country has a more beautiful fall than this particular part of VA.