pep rallies and other signs of fall

Back in the day, you could tell that autumn had arrived for real when the canada geese flew due south  in a honking V formation. They're all discombobulated now, of course. Though there are some traditionalist geese who still buy into the migration, a lot of them insist that the ritual is negotiable. It seems to take them a long time to get their goose act together. You can see raggedy formations flying in wide circles, landing often to check their glitchy GPS, or looping back because someone thinks they might have left the teakettle on. You can hear the traditionalist geese arguing with the golfcourse-potato geese -- who just don't wanna. I feel bad for the whole disoriented canada geese family, but you just can't count on them anymore to tell you when it's fall, and that's the bottom line.

Instead I focus on more reliable signs of fall: apples, pears, maple leaves in the cat food. There's a gradual shift toward stocking up on food in general when fall arrives in earnest -- some mammalian instinct that leads me to make large batches of applesauce, pesto, granola.

And there's butternut squash in the fall, of course. Here's today's pick of our massive butternut squash litter. I have half a mind to give this one a name, like I did for Sam the Carrot, a gigantic garden carrot I carried to school for a couple of weeks in second grade, until mom sat me down and told me it was time to add Sam -- by then all floppy and aggrieved looking -- to some soup.

(You see the problems that can arise when I get attached. I wish I could say I've worked all that through. I mean, I'm over Sam. But I can get mightily attached to things that are crazy evidence of the crazy beauty of this crazy life.)

If you've ever worked in a school, you know that Reunion or Homecoming is a sign of fall, too. The rituals around Homecoming are at least as reliable, and a heck of a lot louder and honking as the geese. It's happening at Porter's this weekend, just down the street from me, and it's happening at Fieldston, Laura's school in the Big City.
This morning she sent me a video clip of her fall ritual, and I sent her a clip of mine. We are having different kinds of pep rallies, as you can see, but we're both enjoying the crazy beauty of this crazy life.