Ending September

September has always been a special month for me. Summer is often uncomfortable, between heat, humidity, and bugs... and when growing up, often lonely. September meant the return to school, teachers who mostly praised me and my accomplishments, people my age who, if they didn't necessarily notice me at least mostly weren't mean to me. Being back in marching band and choir meant fun activities, and with rare exceptions the classes meant new things to learn. Mosquitoes started dying out, thank goodness as I didn't reciprocate their "affection." Frosts might arrive a bit early, their tannins making the whole world smell different in a very welcome way. The uncontrollable curl in my hair would start to relax... just a bit, and while it would never be fashionably straight, at least it was less frizzy. Mostly September was freedom from home. All the rest was a bonus.

It announced itself in colors in northern Minnesota. On the resort there was an endless supply of oak trees, and if they turned brown quickly, at least there was some color before leaf drop.  But the real signal the universe sent was the arrival of two things: sumac leaves turning red, and little wild asters blooming blue. September was here again!

Now, being further south in the state, the color bonanza is more of a hail to the ending of September. But it still starts with the sumac plants putting on their Joseph's coats of colors, challenging the other plants to follow suit.

It can begin with noticing  single hanging branch, its leaves individually and as a group a riot of color. Eventually the whole slides into crimson and off into magenta, ending in deepest red-brown covering the banchtips, just a seed spike left, crowning woody branches.

Long before they have a chance to slide away into sleep the tiny blue asters are up in their last hurrah of tiny blooms, pushing up between spent leaf litter one of the last good snacks for the bees to bring home before winter.

Other plants aren't common enough for you never bother to learn their names before they add their glory into the mix, a last chance to try to ensure a next generation before snow covers them again.

While many others went through that stage when nobody noticed, aside from pollinators, and now...

hang around waiting for conditions to knock seeds loose in amounts large enough...

that a sufficient quantity reach the perfect spot on the ground, like this field clover, that next year's bounty is guaranteed.

Others provide abundant fruits for whatever will eat then and drop seeds to the whims of fate with a light coating of "repelling fertilizer" as a parting gift...

while other just weave themselves into the understory and scratch inquisitive passers who might disturb their chosen winter homes, from which they'll emerge the next spring.

Many oaks seem to go straight from green to brown-and-down before they sleep, while others are more thoughtful about leaving us a show. They've already given an abundance of acorns reminding us that it's well past time to quit wandering barefoot underneath their branches.

. There are vines with the sole aim in life to climb trees as if to leave us a show. They are the most dependable show around, whatever the summer has been like.

At the end of September, many sumac plants have lost a large number of leaves, or turned a washed-out red aging towards burgundy, with dark seed pods poking up above the branches, soon to be all that remains on the branches. It's still declaring fall is starting, if not fully started, even with the occasional brand new occupant in the batch just getting into shedding its green. This year there still has not been a frost. But October will provide one, and during the next month every tree in the state will wear it's Joseph's coat of many colors. 

Some have already started. It's looking a bit pale so far, thanks to the drought. But I'll have pictures.