Sunday, September 30, 2007

october roses

September here in Vermont has been very warm. Except for a few false alarms for a frost warnings, the ninth month has been an extension of our summer. A week ago, some of our famed tree colors began to show, but within a few days, the color has all but disappeared and it seems those leaves have since fallen and we are left with mostly green. It is uncanny, unusual, slightly disconcerting to still be wearing short sleeves and short pants, to still be dragging out the summer fashion, to feel hot in the afternoon. Our interior clocks tell us we should be building fires, wearing thick sweaters, and that sandals and bathing suits should be relegated to the back of the closet.

We are glad for the extended growing season, hoping madly that the last of the green tomatoes will actually ripen, and that we might actually get a late-planted green bean or two. We are glad for the warmer weather, to be able to bask for just a little longer before the bitter cold arrives. Yet all of us locals somehow sound like we are complaining about the heat, the fortuitous and advantageous weather. We've become oxymorons, delighting in the forever-August, yet yearning for the autumnal change.

By the beginning of October, most of the garden has been snatched by Jack Frost, the black-eyed susans black spindles and the herbs withered and brown. The roses are quite bare of leaves with only rosehips left to remind us of the profuse blossoms of July. But not this October. Our roses are still valiant and blooming: the Rosa Rugosas, the William Baffins, the New Dawns, the Bonica, even the tempermental crimson Bourbon Tea. They continue to bud, and flower, the sheaves of petals full of apple, orange, and spicy perfume.

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