Summer is dead! Long Live Autumn!

 

 "As the green soul of summer slips into death, it burns with all the brilliance of the great phoenix diving into the fire. Bursting with all the colors that Autumn can provide as a funeral pyre to it's dying sibling.".  - Ked Meade -

   The Autumn Equinox is a day that the earth experiences the same amount of darkness and light. A great balancing of the season takes place. Legends say that at the height of the equinox, one can balance an egg on it's end and that any rain that gathers in nature will be poisoned for the remains of September. Druids would build bonfires atop hills to signify the change of the season and the ancient Chinese would eat moon cakes to celebrate the coming of mother night.
   We will all notice a difference in the sun as it's very nature will seem changed. The light will appear to fall differently on us, especially in the afternoon. These are great times to walk in nature as the days grow shorter and the colder nights coax out the colors of the fall foliage.

   There are many names for the Autumn Equinox all over the world such as Feast of Avilon, Festival of Dionysus, Harvest Home, Night of the Hunter, Wine Harvest, Cornucopia, Mabon, Harvest Tide, and Witch's Thanksgiving. Here at Ye Olde wicKED Meade Manor we call it the Switching Season. The day all the smiling terracotta suns, wind chimes, and fountains, are exchanged for the yellows, oranges, reds, browns and blacks of Autumn.
 
   Today is going to be a rainy Autumn Equinox.

   That means a couple of things. First, I can't put the summer stuff up in our outbuilding dripping wet so I will have to hope for sunny days tomorrow. It's not a total loss. We will just focus on swapping out interior things and work outside on the first sunny day (which is supposed to be Saturday Woot!). The only kink in that plan is some of our interior stuff is located out in our storage building.
   The second thing about a rainy Autumn Equinox is, I have only known of one other in the last 10 ish years. That was the Fall of 2009. It rained and rained. That was the only Yard Haunt I had to close early because it was soaked. I will be crossing my fingers and toes that this will not be the case this year!
   Looking on the bright side, this is the best time of the year! There is something about the crispness of the night, the air filled with smells of fall that always sparks off nostalgia. Even the look and the feel of the sunlight is unique to this time of year. I can't wait for the leaves to come into color. I have a feeling that I will be posting bunches of cool local pictures of fall. The forecast looks to be great for great colors, sunny days and cold nights are the perfect combination to draw out the blazing Autumn foliage. Until I can capture some new ones, here are some photos I found on the net from my neck of the woods :

 

 

   Another thing I love about Autumn is almost no yard maintenance. The grass grows much slower, and I need to to get kinda "scruffy" to look more haunted for Halloween.  I love to landscape but by this time of the year, I have had my fill.
 
   My Halloween decorations and props are itching to get out into the world by this point to. There is still a lot of maintenance that has to be done to the yard before it is "Autumn Ready". Weeds to whack, brush to thrash, and grass to mow. In an effort to expedite matters, I recruited my Jason prop from out of the guest bathroom shower.
 
    This turned out to be a not so good idea :

   Before I could stop him, he had mowed over most of the flower pots, the outdoor lighting, and the fountains. I still have not seen Pumpkin... hope he survived.  

   

   I had to take him off mowing duty and finish myself. I figured I would have him weed the beds one final time.

   I was able to stop him just before he cut down the last of my Lavender Smoke Trees. I should have known better. At this point, he was causing me more work than helping. I did not want to hurt his feelings so I figured I would put that machete to work where he couldn't hurt anything and he could chop to his hearts content. 

   I put him on the back half of the property where there is a little wooded area. Nothing to hurt here and, if I am lucky, he will clear out another half acre for a pumpkin patch next year. 

      He sure looked happy. Now he was out of my hair and I could finish my work.... what could possibly go wrong?