Last night and this morning we had a hard, cold rain, and today I saw the first signs of Fall color in the trees here in the Finger Lakes. A number of trees, not just one.
So it begins, the long Winter, with a nice Autumn to come first.
Mike
Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
Preparing for Winter
Give Mike a “Like” or Buy yourself something nice
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:
Steve Smith: "Is the use of autumn or fall regional? We only use autumn in the UK."
Mike replies: You know, I have no idea. I'd like to know the etymologies. I can say I've always been a bit put off by the term "Fall"—it reminds me too much of Camus, not to mention Jim Harrison or Poe. Or Gibbon! Just seems a little sententious. Portentous. "Autumn" is gentler, somehow.
Matt: "My favorite season! I associate autumn with nostalgia, fulfillment, warmth and wisdom. Kinda the opposite of spring, which to me is nervous, intense, youthful."
Richard Alan Fox (partial comment):
"Snow and ice and cold
Are not meant for the old."
Ken Tanaka: "Is that your Bob Dylan imitation?"
Mike replies: No, Lee Hazlewood.
(Actually the version I have was done by him late in life, in an old man's voice, but it's not on YouTube.)
Jack Stives: "After a few days of Irma's drizzle drenching central Kentucky, this morning we had a heavy fog as the water rose from the ground shrouding all in a ghostly gloom. In our area, Fall fogs are a harbinger of the cold to come."
It's curious how often our weather here in Yorkshire relates to what you report despite your continental and our maritime climates. We had a very heavy (by our standards) hailstorm yesterday.
Posted by: Richard Parkin | Friday, 15 September 2017 at 02:55 AM
It felt like autumn last week when I was camping in the mountains of Western North Carolina. Today it is going to be 85f in Nashville. Could you please send the TOP jet to bring me to your house?
Posted by: The Terrified Dad | Friday, 15 September 2017 at 08:48 AM
Autumn is my favorite season,
Winter is my least,
I once I lived in California,
Now I am in the East,
Snow and ice and cold,
Are not meant for the old.
Posted by: Richard Alan Fox | Friday, 15 September 2017 at 09:27 AM
Beware the Wight Walkers.
Patrick
Posted by: Patrick Perez | Friday, 15 September 2017 at 12:14 PM
Steve Smith asks "Is the use of autumn or fall regional? We only use autumn in the UK.". I always understood that "Fall" used to be used in England and is one of the old forms retained in North American English. However, in my locality in England the usual term is "Back End" and this may be older than "Fall" for all I know.
Posted by: Richard Parkin | Friday, 15 September 2017 at 05:45 PM
Autumn is my favorite season. Winter and Summer are too extreme and Spring is too wet where I live. However, I would hate for someone to say that I've hit my "Autumn years"!
Posted by: Russ | Friday, 15 September 2017 at 06:04 PM
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/page/324525_Almost_Autumn is my understanding of this time of year.
Posted by: William Lewis | Friday, 15 September 2017 at 07:14 PM
I am originally from Chicago, and it has always been 'fall' to me.
Posted by: Rube | Friday, 15 September 2017 at 07:20 PM
We're not waiting for Autumn here in the "real" upstate NY (60 miles south of the Canadian border).
Posted by: Mark Hobson | Friday, 15 September 2017 at 07:28 PM
Thanks, Mike. I hadn't haven't heard that song by Lee Hazlewood since I was about 8 years old, when my college age sibling brought his album back home one of those long ago summers. Makes me feel young—and very old to hear the song, and not just because of the content.
Posted by: Alan Carmody | Saturday, 16 September 2017 at 08:21 AM
Here in northwest Georgia/southeast Tennessee we mostly say "Fall," but often write "Autumn." In any case, October is the best month of the year. As I wrote in my book "Georgia: A Backroads Portrait:"
"The best of all months is October.
Some may prefer April or May, and I like them too, but I love October. The summer heat has broken so the nights are cool, but the days are mostly warm and since it doesn’t usually rain much the skies are clear almost every day.
October light is the most beautiful because the air is so clear that the long, slanting rays of the southward-moving sun illuminate everything in their path with a special brilliance while casting everything else in deep shadow. Fall color usually peaks right around the last week of October in the North Georgia mountains. Leaf colors are softer than they are farther north, but no less beautiful.
October is the month for the first frost, for arts and crafts fairs, for a briskness in the air that makes you glad to be alive, and for taking someone you love for a long walk to look at the leaves."
Posted by: Dave Jenkins | Sunday, 17 September 2017 at 04:53 PM
This may be a good invitation for a plug for a wonderful etymological website for English, amazingly complete and clearly a labour of love.
Here is the entry for autumn, and if you scroll down you'll find the one for fall.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=autumn
Posted by: Lubo | Monday, 18 September 2017 at 08:25 PM
As Richard Parkin says Fall (the opposite of Spring ... as in "to spring up" like "spring tides) is another 'Americanism" that's really a preserved English phrase.
I rather like the Scots Hairst (usually in the form of five seasons)
https://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairst_(saison)
Coming from the Common Germanic root from which the English get harvest (like Dutch herfst and German Herbst) and so not gaelic at all!).
The old Scottish tradition was of five seasons with hairst starting at the end of August and then leading to something like fall before winter draws on.
Posted by: Kevin Purcell | Wednesday, 20 September 2017 at 07:01 PM