According to my research, next Wednesday, the 23rd, is the date of the Autumnal Equinox. That’s another way of saying that the seasons have changed again. It’s fall. I didn’t need a calendar to tell me that. I’ve already noticed some changes around Sanpete.

A few of the leaves on the trees are changing–especially in the mountains. The apples are ripening. The kids are in school. New shows are being hyped on television. My hunting friends are getting antsy about heading for the hills. The spiders which have been content to live outdoors are wanting to live indoors with me. (I’m a hospitable guy, but my hospitality only goes so far with arachnids.)

What’s amazing to me about fall is that I ask myself the same question every year. And every year I don’t seem to find the answer.

What is the question? See if you can guess the correct response from the following possibilities.

A) How am I going to keep tomatoes in my garden from freezing until I get at least 51% of them harvested?

B) Should I, or should I not, do my Christmas shopping before Halloween, like some people seem to do?

C) Where did the summer go?

D) What is so darn interesting about a bunch of guys wearing protective gear, knocking each other down, while playing with an odd shaped ball?

E) All of the above.

The correct answer is “E.” Let me address these items one by one so that you can get an idea of my end of summer questions.

First off–the tomato question.

This year, I’m just grateful that I have a few tomatoes to worry about. I’m proud to say that I’ve had some success in my struggle with the two big “D’s” this year – Deer and Drought. I continued taking a page out of President Trump’s book and built a wall. Well, the truth is, I put up a temporary fence around my small tomato patch. And because the garden is small, I haven’t needed much water. So, I’m a happy man still eating tomato sandwiches.

I know that a hard freeze probably isn’t too far off. As a kid growing up, I remember helping my mother covering the tomato plants night after night when it was late in the season. She was good at prolonging the life of the garden.

My garden has already had one “false alarm” with frost. My wife and some friends went out and covered the tomatoes. My home thermometer registered a low of 33 degrees that night.

I may try to cover up some of the plants for the first few freezes. But, most likely, I’ll forget one night and it will be the end of the garden for the season. I’ll take the fence down and let the deer have a tomato vine banquet.

The Christmas shopping thing. I know that there are many who do their holiday shopping early. I’ve told you here before about a particular friend who used to have her Christmas shopping done in the early fall. You’d go to her home about this time of year and there in the corner would be a pile of parcels all Christmas wrapped and ribboned.

I’d say to her, “You make me sick.” She didn’t care. She was done with her shopping and able to relax. She was an early bird.

Unfortunately, she died early too–way before her time, of a heart attack. I miss her from time to time–especially when I remember things like giving her a hard time about her early “wra-up” of Christmas.

Where did the summer go? This question seems to become more real as each year comes and goes. There really may be something to the theory that time progresses faster as one gets older.

The one thing I’m sure of is that there aren’t as many weekends in a summer as there used to be. There just ain’t. This virus thing has made it even worse.

We did have a camping breakthrough last weekend. We went to Bullfrog at Lake Powell. We camped in a tent which we’ve owned for nine years. We’ve never had it out of the box until last Friday night. It’s a super duper throw it out on the ground and it sets itself up kind of tent–supposedly.

It was, in fact, easy to set up. What’s not easy is for two older, “rusty” tent camper people to get up and down off an air mattress on the ground when nature calls in the middle of the night. But we did it!

As for my football question, I just don’t know why watching that game is so interesting to me. I do know that high school ball in Sanpete is fun because you know some of the players and their family members.

But in the overall sense, there must be something about the “battle”–something mysteriously cosmic going back to good versus evil. Or maybe it’s just that we like to see guys run around and get knocked down. I don’t know.

I suppose that there’s something psychological there that books could be written about. (I’m sure books have been written about it) I don’t think I want to delve too deeply into it. I guess I’d rather just enjoy the game without knowing why I enjoy it.

Enjoy your autumn Sanpete. And if you have “end of summer questions” don’t let them get you down.

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