Is it my imagination, or has autumn begun unfolding more quickly this year?  The yellow of the goldenrod is echoed in leaves turning yellow in the trees above.  The miracle of chlorophyll deserting the leaves seems to be progressing quickly.  At the start of last week there was just a whiff of fall, but now it seems to be in full swing.  I want a sweater when I take Charlie out at night and in the morning.  There are deep purple asters mixed in with the goldenrod.  Sunrise and sunset have moved noticeably south on the eastern and western horizons, and the days are shortening down toward winter.

I remember wanting summer to last forever, but I’m no longer that girl.  I remember realizing with horror that there would be no more summers off when I first started working.  Now, deep into retirement, and back in a land of real seasons, the shifting of the seasons feels different and I am not sorry to see summer end.  This season of harvest feels so rich, with pumpkins showing up at the farmers market, and with the season’s outpouring of overflowing baskets of fruits and vegetables.  We’ve had a week of glorious sunny days, as if even the sky was overflowing with the joy of the harvest.  It’s the time of year when the sweaters and tee shirts both have to find space in the drawers before the summer clothes are put away and the winter clothes take over.

The lower unit of our duplex is totally remodeled, and you can take Bea’s beautiful virtual tour here.  https://www.bgcagency.com/37averil  It does feel a little odd not to have the guys working downstairs anymore.  We’re by no means out of projects – there’s still a garage to put up. There’s still a deck to tear down so that the front lawn can be graded correctly to drain away from the house, and then a deck to be rebuilt.  Some of this may wait until next year, but if the Village will finally give us a permit at the end of the month we should be able to get the garage up before winter.  The back and forth with the Village over this simple project has been incredibly frustrating, but I think we’re nearly done.

We have been on Averill Road, in  the house Jay named The Trees, for just over one year, so we’ve seen the full cycle of seasons. It’s beautiful here in every season and every weather, and at every time of day.  The big housing project that was planned for just north of us on Averill has been on hold since we moved here.  The site is mostly cleared of trees and fenced in ugly chain link, but it now appears that the project will not go forward.  There are other projects planned for the Village which will relieve the housing pressure, and our guess is that the hospital (which planned to build here for employees) has figured out that it’s too costly to develop this site.  We would have benefited in some small ways with improved water and sewage if the project had gone forward, but the huge benefit of not having it built is that we keep the traffic from 36 planned units off Averill, and we keep all the quiet and privacy. We had supported the project because the need for housing was so great, but we’re perfectly happy to see that housing built downhill from us on Main Street.

With Labor Day behind us the town has begun to shed its summer tourist population.  Work is going on everywhere to prepare for the weather to come.  Everyone is busy.  We are so lucky to have Mike and his wonderful team committed to us, not least because contractors are impossible to find now.  Mike and his wife Bea (the photographer and marketer of our rentals) and their five kids are living in temporary quarters after a house fire.  Everyone is safe, including the dogs, but it has turned their lives upside down.  Remarkably, they’ve hardly missed a beat at work and school.  And it was heartening to see how quickly and generously the community responded to their immediate needs. They’ll spend the coming year in one of their rentals, which had just come vacant days before the fire, and Mike will spend the year as his own client, rebuilding the family home on Goose Street.  The good news is that insurance has to pay for the rebuilding to bring the house up to code, and that means it will be better insulated. 

So now we have a fire extinguisher, which we should have had all along.