As it turns out, I had a nasty little flu rather than a miserable cold. By Friday night, my temperature was nearly 102, but the next day, Saturday, I felt significantly better. By Sunday, I was more or less back to my normal schedule. I even did some cutting back in the garden.

Unfortunately but not unexpectedly, Clif caught what I had—couples sure do like to share. But he should be fine by next weekend, when Dee is coming home from New York to help celebrate yet another retirement fête for Clif. (This should be the last one. Clif has certainly retired in style.)

Being sick, of course, is no fun, but I much prefer short and brutal over long and miserable. I have had colds stretch out for a week or two, with coughing at night to make sleep next to impossible. At least what I had was over in a few days, and a good thing, too, as there is much to do outside to get the yard ready for winter.

We still haven’t had a hard frost, but for the most part, the gardens and potted plants have had it. The coleuses have taken on a leggy, spiky look, and I hope to have them removed by the end of the week.

The hostas have become yellow and curled, and yesterday I began cutting them back.

The leaves of the evening primroses have turned a lovely red, and I’ll cut those last.

The ferns, too, have had it and are curling back into themselves. I don’t clip the ferns. I let them take care of themselves, and this seems to work just fine. Each spring, they return in a vigorous burst of green.

For a gardener, fall can be a melancholy time. The clipped plants give the gardens a shaved look.

Soon all the garden ornaments will be stored down cellar, as we Mainers like to say. The patio furniture will come in, and the grill will be moved onto the lawn. How sad, bare, and lonely it all looks when this happens.

Good thing, then, that October is such a beautiful, golden month. It’s almost as if she were saying, “Yes, I know brown, austere November is coming, and after that the long cold of winter, but before it does, I’ll give you some deep blue skies and some blazing leaves as consolation.”

And indeed, what a consolation!

“But we should not mourn the summer garden. It was not more or less beautiful because it was temporary. If we were smart we took advantage of summer to experience as many moments of garden joy as we possibly could.”  —Jason, from the blog Garden in a City

Yesterday was the fall equinox, that time when there is a balance between day and night. In Maine, fall is perhaps its most beautiful season, a dazzling time of bright blue skies, blazing leaves, warm days, and cool evenings.

However, Jason’s lovely description perfectly captures the bitter-sweet mood that northern gardeners feel when autumn comes. We should “not mourn the summer garden,” but in our heart of hearts, many of us do. Gone are the lilies, the bee balm, and the phlox. The stalwart black-eyed Susans are fading fast. The modest sedums, with their blush of pink, provide some consolation, but the joyous burst of color in the gardens is over for another year.

Yet Jason is also right about taking as many moments of garden joy as we can in the summer. Clif and I certainly did. Almost every evening this summer and indeed this September, we took our supper plates out to the patio, where we smelled the spicy bee balm and listened to the crickets, the loons, and the barred owls. In August, as dusk fell, we admired the hummingbird moths. We were still in blissful ignorance about the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde nature of these little creatures, of how the beautiful, ethereal moths lay eggs that hatch to become marauding, voracious hornworms.   (I do want to note that not all hornworms attack tomatoes, but the offspring of the hummingbird moths that visited our garden certainly did.)

The gardens are in tatters, and next week I’ll begin cutting them back.

Cutting back the garden always makes me feel a little blue, but there are certain consolations. That bright sky, the warm sun, and the changing leaves.  Now that summer’s heat has gone, time spent around the firepit.

And, of course, apple pie, my favorite kind of pie to make. This year is surely a banner year for apples. The wild trees by the side of the road are laden with fruit, and yesterday, on a walk, I snitched a couple of dropped apples from beneath a neighbor’s tree. How good and crisp and white they were, with nary a sign of one single worm.  I am thinking of asking if I can snitch some more drops. (Cheryl, I promise to invite you over for apple pie or crisp. Your choice.)

So onward to fall. Every season—even the long dark of winter—has its beauty and pleasures. And like our friend Burni, we intend to squeeze as much pleasure as we can out of each season.

All in all, it has been a very good June. In Maine, June is typically rainy. Way back in the old days, I remember my father complaining about rotting beans in his garden—sometimes he would have to replant—and my friend’s father wondering anxiously if the weather would hold for haying.

A couple of years ago, it rained for twenty straight days. The slugs and snails blissfully chewed their way through my gardens, and I participated in what can only be called slug and snail genocide. (A jar of soapy water filled with the little slimers is truly a disgusting sight.) But finally I gave up. There were just too many of them, and by July many of my plants were in ribbons.

In disgust, I took this picture of my own wet feet, which looked this way too often two Junes ago.

But this year, June has given us a break. Yes, it has rained, and this is good. We need rain. But we have also had a number of sunny days, and at the little house in the big woods, everything green is flourishing—the herbs in my small garden, my potted plants, the flowers. There have been slugs and snails, but so far their numbers are few, and the hostas, for the most part, remain unscathed.

The other day, as I was at the kitchen sink, I looked out the window and saw two downy woodpeckers, about the same size. However, one was feeding the other, a parent with a fledgling. Soon the parent will no longer be feeding “Junior,” but as my husband noted, Junior now knows where the feeder is. I will be sure to keep it full.

The lightening bugs have made their luminous appearance, and at night, as Clif and I sit in the living room, we see them on the screens on the windows. A little blinking glow in the dark night.

As lovely as the backyard looks, it is not always a peaceable kingdom. Female hummingbirds fight fiercely for control of the feeder, filled with a sugar and water mixture. (Jodie Richelle recently wrote about this on her blog.) It seems to me that they spend as much time fighting as they do feeding. Yesterday, my husband and I watched in fascination as over and over, the hummingbirds dived bombed each other. It didn’t look as though any blood was spilled, but it must be exhausting to fight like that.

“If only they would cooperate,” I said sadly. “There’s enough for all of them.”

“It’s not their nature,” Clif replied.

I guess it’s not. Unlike, say, crows, hummingbirds have evolved to be highly competitive, and I suppose it has served them well. But still.

July is just around the corner. Two more sweet months of summer. I try to enjoy each day to its fullest, to spend as much time outside as I can, to take pictures of the burst of flowers, the insects, and the rush of green.

Ah, summer, summer.