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Leaves are beginning to fall – first the foreign catalpas, then the lilacs and locust, next the maples, then that gloomy day when all the hickory’s leaves drop at once, turning its profile to crooked grey branches bearing clusters of nuts. Oaks hold on all year, their colour deepening to the tone of oxblood leather. The honeysuckle, holly, yews and spruce take over, greening the view all winter, but its hard not to miss the leaves’ presence. The cedar waxwings are shaking rowan berries all over the lawns, the robins have stolen the fermented stuff and already gone. The sandhill cranes came out of the swamp with two fledglings heading southeast. Time to pull in, stack the firewood, and settle down for a season of reflection.

Alban Elfed has always been my favourite time of year. The skies move higher, winds shift a bit to the northwest – everything seems cleaner, crisper, brighter. Roses that should have bloomed best in May have learned to wait out the new hotter summers, and rebloom in Autumn. I’m very glad they are all recombinant, or I’d have no roses at all, save the multifloras.

My crows gather up from their summer haunts in the high back woods, and maintain a vigil around the edges of the cleared land, taking over when the bats go into winter quarters. The seed-eaters move back up too, chickadees, titmice, and juncos, while the woodpeckers, creepers and jays remember where the stash was last winter. The warblers and towhees have already fled, following on the hummingbird’s trail south. The geese that feel like going trace huge Vs across the skies, while the ones who’d rather wait it out constantly circle the open ponds and wish them farewell.

Walking down the elvish paths into the woods, cool loving mushrooms are everywhere. Cardinals are cleaning up the remaining dried blackberries, turkeys are chasing the falling acorns – by first snowfall there’ll be scare a nut left. Red squirrels are impatient, plucking the hickories even before they’ve fallen,  leaving green shell casings in pyramidal piles on the stones here and there. Ferns have curled and dried, mayapples vanished. Deer mice stack leaves into mounds and tunnel down, lining their nests with soft grasses, found fur and occasional feathers, often stolen from the bluebird boxes. The ‘elves’ that make this twisty path are named Mink and Doe, Fawn and Buck, Hen and Tom, Coyote and Bitch, Rabbit and Skunk, Eikthir and Senn…

To me, this is the beginning of the year, as it was to our ancestors. There should always be rest before work, fallow before growing, night before morning. Introspection before motion, planning before building. The Wheel rolls on.