The end of summer’s lifespan has been once again vastly overstated. Do not write her obituary just yet. As we move into this third full week of September, and the meteorological end of the summer season is in full view, she has arisen!
We can feel the brush of her high 80’s hot air and bask in the bake of her high noon sun. Sure, the color of the palate has changed – highlighting browns and yellows now, but where sprinklers sputter the grass is yet bright green and growing.
Hummers and Monarchs may be preparing for migration, and who can say about the geese of Canada? Most of them are now year-round pests. Sunflowers are still blooming, as are zinnias; and sedums are coming into their own. This can be true even as the coneflower and black-eyed-Susan have gone the way of the day lily and iris.
A bike ride in the countryside shows soybean fields more yellow than green, and some even a crisp brown. The exception being the second crop group that grows green yet – shadowing out it’s wheat stubble bed.
Some of the early corn has already been picked. Birds flutter out of otherwise drying corn fields, brown from the bottom up, as I ride past. They seem to say, “leave me be while I catch a late summer nap.”
The sun will set a fraction of time earlier this evening, and the rise just a tad later come morn. We may awaken to temps in the 50’s, but they will be short-lived, climbing higher by the hour, like summer herself who has made a comeback.
It’s a last week, maybe two, in which to remember vacation days, holidays, pool and beach days, or fishing at the pond. It’s a “Minnesota goodbye” summer offers – first from the front room, then the foyer, out the door and onto the porch, and finally from the drive. “Come again” we say, “when you can stay longer next time.”
© Daniel M. Cash 2025
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