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Friday, August 29, 2003 It's been feeling like late September these last few days. Remember my entry of last Saturday, when I went on about predicted cold weather not arriving? It showed the following night, the mercury dropping down into the low 40s. Some neighbors stopped by Sunday a.m. for a brunch kind of thing, folks who live at the bottom of the hill -- they mentioned that when they woke up the thermometer outside their window read 39 . Cold snaps are normal in August in these parts but this one apparently decided it liked here and has lurked about ever since. The nights have gone well down into the 40s, most of the days have not made it above 60. The finches and hummingbirds are still hanging around, despite the early cold. The crickets and their singing insect brethren remain out there in the grass cranking out late summer music 24 hours a day. A nice soundtrack for Mars-gazing, something I intended to do a bit of last night. Woke up after 3, pulled my drowsy carcass out of bed, took a glance out the window to see that fog had drifted in, thick enough to wipe any possibility of checking out anything the sky might have to offer. Poop. Tonight. Or tomorrow night. Whenever a clear sky presents itself and I happen to be awake. So the Vermont warm season is gradually fading, the cold months are on deck. Last week the first batch of local apples and apple cider appeared at the farm stand up the road. Monday the first pumpkins appeared on the lawn at the same business, about two hundred of them, practically aglow with a cheery, eye-catching orange in the soft afternoon sunlight. Also this last Monday, kids appeared at local roadsides waiting for 8 a.m. school buses, looking less than enchanted about the situation, backpacks slung over shoulders. Wednesday, driving along a twisty two-lane between here and a neighboring town, I came upon a tree whose top quarter was crowned with orange leaves. Brazenly tarted up for autumn, the first of the season to take plunge. Later that same day, driving slowly home up a narrow, rocky fourth-class road not far from here, a hawk plunged out from trees on the right-hand side of the road, gliding directly in front of me for 20-25 feet before alighting in an overhanging tree. I stopped, put the car in neutral, peered up at it, just ten or so feet above me to the left. For 30 or 40 seconds, we checked each other out, the hawk apparently not sure what to make of this encounter, expression fierce but body occasionally bobbing back and forth with uncertainty until it finally lifted off and disappeared through the trees to the left, visible briefly through the leaves as a silhouette moving away, wings stationary as it rode a breeze. Labor Day weekend looms. This summer has slipped by at a startling velocity. And a lovely, graceful summer it was, at least up in the northerly lattitudes. Signage spotted recently in Montpelier: -- In the window of Charlie-O's, a bar on Main Street ("Good drinks and bad company since the war between the States"): CHARLIE-O'S CAFÉ TABAC A CIGAR BAR NOW SMOKIER THAN EVER -- At one end of the Granite Street Bridge, facing the traffic light on Memorial Drive: Originally: STOP HERE FOR GREEN LIGHT Someone white-painted out the last word and painted in a shaky-lettered replacement, the sign now reading: STOP HERE FOR GREEN BUDS rws 1:04 PM [+]
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