I Actually Did Not Write This

Nor did I have input. But I’ve found my spirit author regarding seasons!

Here on Main Street: The “Ber” Months

The next four months are the most wonderful time of the year.

What kind of terrible person hates summer?

It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem, it’s me (to quote a newly engaged woman).

Longtime readers of the Post know that I hate the summer months of June, July, and August with the intense heat of a thousand suns (which is often what those months feel like).

Summer is overrated. I think there’s a secret summer society that has people brainwashed that June, July, and August are the perfect months. The sun! The heat! The beaches! The cookouts! To which I would add: The bugs! The sweltering heat! The sunburns!

Remember those Country Time lemonade mix commercials, the ones that lamented that “summer will be a short 94 days?” I used to think, really, it’s going to be that long?

I bet if you really pinned people down and promised to keep their responses anonymous, they would actually admit that fall is better than summer.

(Kids aren’t factored in that polling because they get out of school in the summer and are carefree for three months (though I bet they love getting new school supplies). I have to do the same exact things I do the other months of the year; the only difference is I sweat more.)

I like the “Ber” months,” the months of fall and early winter: September, October, November, December.

There’s a great argument to be made that the new year should start in September instead of January. I wouldn’t make that argument myself, but I could!

Vacations are over, kids are back in school, adults have a new focus on work, people are making plans, the weather is changing. There’s an energy that happens in the fall that you don’t get in the lazy days of summer. There’s more of a fresh, new-feeling start as the calendar ticks over from August to September than there is when we go from December to January. Labor Day could be the new New Year’s.

There’s also better food in the fall and winter. Comfort foods like hot, hearty soups and chili. Pasta and stews and pies. We can turn on the oven again in the “Ber” months.

What do we eat in the summer? A salad? Yeah, that’s comforting.

Holidays? I’ll take Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas over St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, and the Fourth of July. All of the holidays from March until August put together don’t add up to the three big holidays you get in the fall and winter.

Clothing? In the warm, sticky months you wear shorts and gross flip-flops. I don’t need to see anyone’s feet. In the “Ber” months, there are more clothing options, and I’m actually more comfortable in jeans, a sweatshirt, or a flannel shirt than I am with less clothing in the summer.

You say the “Ber” months are the “Brrr” months? So what? Are you a construction worker? Are you a mail carrier? Then why are you concerned with how cold it is? Go inside your home and turn up the heat. Wrap yourself in a blanket and make yourself a cup of tea.

Tea is the official drink of fall and winter, by the way.

Even arts and entertainment are better in the fall. The movies seem to be of better quality, the big books come out. Sure, fall TV isn’t quite what it used to be (new shows premiere year-round now), but people still look forward to September and October when new seasons of their old favorite shows start.

Every August, local newscasters and meteorologists sigh heavily that the summer is ending. The nice temperatures are going away! Can’t we prolong the summer a little bit longer? They get all upset that instead of it being 90 it’s 68, which apparently is some unbearable temperature.

I submit to you that “nice weather” in the summer is actually pretty rare. I’d rather view the spectacular brown and gold treescape above or snowy winter scenes than a bright sun broiling asphalt.

You say I can just turn on the air conditioner in the summer if it’s too hot and humid? I don’t have an air conditioner, and people who don’t have an air conditioner can’t escape the heat and humidity (I don’t know what it’s like where you live, but here in New England, all homes come with heat but you usually have to add the A/C yourself). You can always put on another piece of clothing if it’s too cold. If you keep taking off an article of clothing when it’s too hot, eventually someone will call the police (and they’ll be filming you on their phone and putting it online).

Of course, a lot of this is a regional thing. There are more warm months in places like Texas and Arizona and Florida, and it’s a regular thing for them. Which is why I would never live in Florida (and the weather is only one of approximately eleven reasons why I would never live in Florida).

So I’m happy that it’s after Labor Day. The next four months are the most wonderful time of the year. And even when the “Ber” months are over, everything is still good because then we get the “Ary” months. As a lover of the cold and snow, I welcome them too.

I own sweaters and I know how to use them.

In My Backyard

there is a little apple tree. The people who lived here before us planted an apple and a pear tree. The pear tree was taken out by wind/lightning several years ago, and DH took out the stump a few years after that. The apple tree has just kept plugging along. We didn’t/still don’t care for spraying chemicals for pests, so the apples are mostly enjoyed by creatures of the air and ground, if I’m clear. But one year in the early aughts, I thought I’d try to collect some of the apples, cook them up, and put them away. I looked up some info on doing such things, and learned from the U of MI that our tree is considered to be a neglected fruit tree, because it isn’t sprayed to keep pests away, nor professionally pruned. The information confirmed that the plan to cook and freeze was the best one for apples from such a tree. I did that for a few years, but then went back to work and the tree continued to produce (except for one year; we got blossoms, but no fruit. It was back the next year, though.)

So, late last Winter, I needed to get some maintenance done on all the trees in the yard. The trimmers were such great help, and it is easier to relax when the wind is harsh, since the trees are nicely trimmed and power lines are not endangered by tree branches. The trimmers discussed the little apple tree with me; the photos below will help explain. We decided to trim the apple tree but let it stay because there were blossoms, and new branches and limbs. Something to do with, if the new branches are growing up, there is life; if the branches are growing downward or outward, it’s a last gasp. The trimmers’s business is a 2d generation family business, with all members having studied tree ag specifically so they can care for people’s trees in the best interests of all. They’re great people. So, anyway:

It appears, from the trunk, that the tree is dead, as seen in the shot above; that’s at the bottom of the tree, and up to the first branch. An entire family of elves could live comfortably in this tree. And yet, there are newer branches, with young limbs. This morning I was out there with Ollie, and there are more baby limbs growing! So I took photos, and thought I’d share. If anyone knows about this, input is welcome; else enjoy my apple tree!