There’s not much like finding some fat perch while you’re fishing on a day off during second summer. September is so beautiful in Ely and with our early cold snap, we’re the happy recipients of fall colors like those seldom seen. Yellows, oranges and especially reds and pinks have an extra punch and prominence to them halfway through my favorite month of the year.
Early in the morning I trimmed around the rocks that form the edge of our flowerbeds. I got the mower out and did a quick turn of the backyard, thinking that although it could be the last time, it most likely won’t be. As I type there are leaves falling from the crabapple, but we’ve had three days in the almost eighties if not above. Peppery nasturtiums, sunflowers, zinnia, mums, poppies, petunias, love lies bleeding and some johnnie jump ups are all still in full bloom. The grape vine provided gallons and gallons of concord grapes this year. If my garage door was round and green like that of a hobbit hole, it’d be a perfect backyard setting.
There’s a constant flight pattern that swoops through, stopping on occasion: all manner of sparrows, starlings, chickadees, and now waxwings that visit the fermenting fruit of the crabapple tree. The sunflowers are still sticky in their centers and laden with lazy bees. Tomatoes are ripening and yes, in true Minnesota style there are still zucchini growing larger under their now frost-spotted large green leaves. Those are destined to be shredded and transformed into Jen’s deliciously moist double chocolate zucchini cake that unless you tell them, nobody knows has zucchini in it.
The afternoon was quiet on the lake as we hunted for sunnies and perch and that elusive monster pike over the cabbage and under the lily pads. It was a sunburn day, a relaxand- soak-it-all-up day and a day for warm conversation and plans for creative ventures that lay ahead. There were no bugs, birds were singing and flitting in amongst the tall wild rice and the cattails. What I was catching over and over again, was more than what went into the fish basket, it was the fact that I wasn’t thinking about anything I had to do or any deadline I had to meet. I was soaking in the simple fact that I was doing, thinking and feeling exactly what I most wanted… and had been for the entire day.
Summer isn’t over. The poppy seeds may be dried in their elegant pods, the leaves may be turning and some falling as you read this, the windows at night let in the coolest of breezes with an occasional whiff of woodsmoke, Fall has Autumned. Summer isn’t over though. I’m still going to swim again, I’m going to soak up more sun. It can co-exist with the short and savory sensations of September. We can celebrate the short shoulder season of Autumn when October rolls in.
