Summer's Last Gasp

We are drenched in south Minneapolis this morning, five fresh inches of precipitation atop yards already charged to the brim with recent rain. I would be worried about mold and mildew (though our basement checked out bone dry at 5:30 a.m.) if it weren't for the foretaste of winter poised to our north and west.

The best season, in my opinion, is always the one that's about to start, and right now I await fall with arms open wide, fleece and corduroy at the ready. Summer has clung to early October like a groupie. We removed our window a/c units a few weeks ago, and have endured several nights since that have not dipped below 70. I am a northern person by habit and pelage, and the heat index has no place in a month that ends in "brrr." This recent intractable ridge of warmth and humidity (yesterday LaCrosse and Aberdeen were nearly 50 degrees apart) seems from the weather map to be defying the inevitable, as if it were a Floridian who just bought a condo in St. Cloud.

But fall's frosty mornings and temperate days will win out, and in a few months I'll be wishing for subfreezing consistency so the snow can get a foothold. And in March? Nothing invites good riddance more than the hard brown budless days of late winter once you have first caught the scent of unfrozen soil.