Bluster at the Border

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Today was the end of the beginning.It began with balmy bluster; a steamy day that, despite the heat in the morning, was seeing the surrender of much of the fall foliage. Sporadic gusts sent leaves skipping down the church lane, and Thing1 and I worked quickly, hoping to get the canopy up and secured before the forecasted showers arrived.The sun made a brief appearance just as we finished getting my Harvest Festival booth set up, and when the sun went, so did summer.   Brief showers punctuated the rest of the day, and, as the temperature dropped, the talk among the vendors turned to snow.  We had all heard rumors on Friday (the ladybugs swarming on our screens are warning enough for us), and, when the crowd dissipated  as it always does on a rainy festival day, debates on the merits of a 'real' winter abounded.But for me, regardless of the first snow date, today's crumbling avalanche of color was really the end of the beginning of fall.  And when the colder gusts strip the trees bare, my favorite season - stick season - begins.  It's when the wind and the fire in the evening sky whip the trees into an extended feverish dance and when that dance inflames the imagination.Most of the day I under my hermetically sealed canopy, nervously watching the skies as the crowd fluctuated and hoping my pictures would be spared during any deluge.  The rain, when it came, was brief .  But when it was over, and when I had restored order to my wind-blown booth, I stepped out into the lane.Vendors had donned jackets and even hats.  There was a bite in the air, and suddenly the trees were more naked than not.  And I knew the bluster had brought us to the border of something even better.