Leaves

Each shift in seasons here is full of miracles.  As the days get shorter and the temperature drops the chlorophyll dissipates in the leaves on the trees. That chlorophyll has transformed sunlight into tree food since the leaves unfurled in the spring, but it can’t keep up its work now.  Its departure reveals the yellow that was always in the leaves, and some sugars do the amazing work of turning leaves orange and red. We are surrounded by trees here on Averill Road at the edge of Cooperstown. A dense forest spreads into the distance across the road.  A deep stand of trees grows between our house and the last block of Main Street that runs at the bottom of the hill behind our house.  We see leaves from every angle; we look down on them below us on the hillside, across at eye level out the window, and we look up at them far above us nearly everywhere.  They block out most of the night sky, and I miss the glory of the huge sky we had on Sunnyhill.  But the trees are good compensation for that loss and they make wonderful neighbors.

The Farmers Market is a cornucopia at this season.  There are still fruits and summer vegetables, but they’ve been joined by the hard squashes that will last well into the winter.  At the equinox every living thing knows summer is over.  Hats and sweaters appear. The fawns are nearly as big as their mothers.  The hummingbirds have left town. The sunflowers haven’t been harvested yet, but their heads are brown now and they bow their faces towards the ground.  There is still some corn in the fields but the leaves are shrinking back and their color is dimming.

We are mostly settled into the lower level of Averill Road, settled enough to manage company for dinner, although if there’s more than four at the table it’s still paper plates until I find the rest of the dishes.  I have opened, if not yet unpacked, all the boxes in the front bedroom.  The living room is totally comfortable, although the wall where the stairway to the upper level was taken out is sheet rocked but not painted, and it won’t be until we move out when the upper level is finished.  The kitchen down here is adequate, if not beautiful, especially now that Jay has put sliders into the otherwise inaccessible lower cabinets.  The bathroom, with its huge, wheelchair accessible shower and its inexplicably tiny sink, is functional if a little odd.  The bedroom with its two walls of windows and three skylights is a joy. Charlie and I have a beautiful, quiet place to walk, and we can watch the progress on the upper level day by day.  

I’ve walked the mile through the woods to Moe pond.  It’s a beautiful walk on the unpaved road that the vehicles belonging to the biological field station use once in a great while.  Most of the time, the road lies silent, with squirrels the main traffic.  In the time it took me to walk to Moe Pond and back I met only one pair of fellow walkers, but I heard a great many birds.  The trees pick up the wind and sway a little.  The dead leaves and pine needles that carpet the forest dampen all the sound.  There’s all the oxygen your lungs can desire.  Every breeze shakes leaves down from the trees now.  The trees know they’re not getting any more food from those leaves this year, so they close off their passages to the leaves, cutting them off and letting them fall away.  They have served their purpose, and now they only create risk for the trees, threatening to weigh them down and break branches if a heavy snow falls before they drop.  The tourists, too, have served their purpose, feeding Cooperstown through the summer.  They’re dropping away now, leaving the town to us, leaving parking places and plenty of room in restaurants. We’re grateful for the tourists, for the jobs they sustain, but we won’t miss them any more than the trees will miss the leaves.