MORNING SENTINEL • October 13, 2021
Trees follow the sun. Among humans, such devotion would be deemed religious. To every thing, there is a season. Plants submit to the sunlight, and the withering of the woods and fields comes on the same elemental schedule regardless of other conditions. But the intensity of the colors that follow has complicating causes: Moisture in the ground from summer rains and from wetter or drier conditions in September and October, and how and when sharp cold strikes. This year, through the second week of October, there has been almost no sharp cold. In fact, except for the unchanging change in sunlight, summer stayed through September and has lingered into mid-October. If you can remember autumns 20, 30, 40 years past, you know this is not normally how it works. Fall is getting pleasantly, alarmingly warmer. ~ Dana Wilde