The Farmer's Almanac and the Coming of the Fall

I have in front of me The Old Farmer’s Almanac, Calculated on a New and Improved Plan for the Year of Our Lord 2016, Being Leap Year and (Until July 4) 240^th Year of American Independence; Fitted for Boston and the New England States, with Special Corrections and Calculations to Answer for All the United States.

 

Because fall is upon us.  Not for the weather forecasts; not for advice on when to plant; not for the ads for various remedies.   But for the “variety of New, Useful & Entertaining Matter”.  Folklore about shoes. The distances that seeds travel, on the wind, on water, on the backs of animals.  Ten laws that explain everything.   But mostly, because fall is upon us.

I don’t know how it started, but many years ago my mother started giving my brothers and me copies of the Old Farmer’s Almanac every fall.  And for years now, every fall I’ve bought three copies, for my brothers and myself.

The short summer, as I think of it, ended on Labor Day. (It had begun just before the Fourth of July).  The long summer, which started Memorial Day weekend, will last until Columbus Day.  But the calendar summer is over, and the shortening of the days, gradual in July and early August, has come on with a rush, and the trees have a washed-out look.

As D.H. Lawrence wrote,

            Now it is autumn and the falling fruit

            and the long journey towards oblivion.

(“The Ship of Death”, 1933).

But I’m thinking less of oblivion than of the cycle of the year.  The long journey towards the time for thinking of the Winter Provisions, the Fool’s Errand, the time to bring in the tree, and the ascent back into the lengthening days.  And the Almanac, with its calendar pages and corrections and calculations provides a framework that stands alongside the rush of the world, the way rhythm and meter provide frameworks that stand alongside good songs and good poems, without constraining the flow of language.

And I’m thinking now of bees.  Long, long ago, when Julie and I worked together, we would often walk outside on our morning coffee break.  All through that last summer, we’d finish our coffee, and watch with just the slightest apprehension as bees came and investigated our empty mugs for traces of sugar.

There was a cooling of the weather, and no bees. And then a warm day.  A bee came, flying slowly, and seemed to walk slowly and unsteadily on the rim of my mug, and I thought sadly that an end was coming.   And I don’t know at this remove whether at the same time I realized that another cooling off had happened, and another end was coming; or if I’ve superimposed that on the memory, in the light of later sadness.

 

But that’s a long story for another time, the plot for the unfinished novel and unrevised play, and the amazing unlooked-for lesson of never, ever, ever giving up hope.

 

But for now I’m thinking of fall being upon us, and of gratitude for busy bees, and old friends, and small traditions, and my mother’s great kindness.