Well, I guess I'm officially acclimated.
It's September 14 and for the past week or so I've been enjoying the break in the heat; the daytime highs are now only in the mid-90's!
A couple of weeks ago I was telling a friend of mine that just moved from Idaho that I was glad we were finally getting some cool weather. "Cool weather?!” She scoffed, “It's 95 degrees!"
Well, I guess I'm officially acclimated.
It's September 14 and for the past week or so I've been enjoying the break in the heat; the daytime highs are now only in the mid-90's!
A couple of weeks ago I was telling a friend of mine that just moved from Idaho that I was glad we were finally getting some cool weather. "Cool weather?!” She scoffed, “It's 95 degrees!"
This morning I’m thinking back to my days in the U.P. By mid-September, the daytime temperature would be in the 60's and there has, most likely, already been frost at night. Fall ushers in an infusion of color, hues of brilliant gold, red, orange, and yellow paint the jagged horizon. Even the countless lakes and rivers seem to be deeper and darker.
Come November 15th, the game hunters are happy if there has been snowfall, it makes tracking the grouse and white-tail deer easier. Nature is typically happy to oblige.
In the U.P. the Christmas songs we all grew up with really had some application: "Over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother's house we go,""I'm dreaming of a white Christmas,""Dashing through the snow,""Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!" Here, in TX, few opportunities present themselves to ride a one-horse-open-sleigh - though you will find a carriage or two.
We played all winter on snowmobiles, snowshoes, ski’s, toboggans.
I remember ice-skating was as free and close as shoveling snow to clear a patch of ice off the nearest frozen lake, pond, or river. We’d skate for so many hours that by the time we came in out of the cold our feet would actually ache as they thawed.
We'd spend hours outside making forts out of the bricks of packed snow kicked up by the snowplows. Or, playing "King of the Hill" on the biggest snow bank we could find.
I used to cross-country ski, and remember that, in my opinion; the best temperature for skiing was 10 degrees Fahrenheit. It was cold at first, but by the time we'd ski the few miles of McCormick’s tract (Cyrus McCormick, inventor of the reaper), leading to the long abandoned home where we'd share a bottle of wine and have some lunch, I'd have shed all but my waffle-weave thermal shirt.
When winter finally succumbed to the first warm rays of spring, we’d eagerly await the patch of dry grass so we could lay out our beach towels and soak up some of the sun we hadn’t seen, but briefly, for several months.
Someone once asked me if the U.P. was where they had to pump sunshine in during the winter. I’ve also heard the weather up there described as 9 months of snow then 3 months of bad sledding. Perhaps my favorite was when we traveled to the Keweenaw Peninsula one summer and my husband, a Florida boy, noted with disbelief that the snow marker recorded 32ft of snow! When he asked one of the shop owners how one can live with that much snow, the man, without a smile replied, “Get tough or die.”
So here I sit, on September 14, in Texas, expecting a high temperature of 95. I miss the changes of season; and Fall has always been my favorite. I sometimes even miss the snow. My kids will have such different memories of the seasons they experience! Alex looked out the window just as an Oak tree was relinquishing a couple of brown leaves and he asked, “Mom, is it Fall?”
“Another week until Fall officially arrives,” I tell him. In Texas I measure seasons by the calendar, not by Nature’s signal.
Alex replied “Yeah! I’m glad summer’s over!”
“Why?”
“I like winter because you get to throw snowballs!” He answered.
Snowballs? It occurred to me how sweet and precious these Winter memories are to me. The snow has fallen 2 days in the 8 years I’ve lived in Austin. We had snow one day last winter and one day the winter before – all melted by noon. But it was enough snow for the boys to put on their gloves and jackets, head outside and experience just a sample of the Winter Wonderland I knew.