Reflections on the Second Week of Fall – Warnings vs. Signs

Deer Creek

My husband’s cell phone vibrated and shimmed across the coffee table.

Ignoring the phone, I tied my outdoor shoes. I had a mission―find signs of fall for my brother in Florida.

On the first full day of fall, he’d sent a text. Is it fall yet?

Yes. I’d tapped tiny phone screen letters. We took a woods walk to celebrate. Only a few colored leaves so far.

Still summer here. Hot with afternoon and evening thunderstorms.

Since I’d sent my brother one sign of fall on the first day of fall, I wanted to find ten signs for him on Tuesday, October 2, the tenth day of fall.

Spence picked up his vibrating phone. “Hmm. It says tornado warning until four o’clock.” He set the phone down and squinted at the computer on the coffee table. “Weather Channel has warnings for Mercer, Crawford, Venango, Erie . . .” Spence stood, walked to the collection of outdoor footwear on the boot tray by the door, and slipped into his hiking boots. “Looks like all counties in Western Pennsylvania have tornado warnings. Must be pop-up tornadoes.”

I looked out the sliding glass door. Puffy white clouds eased across a blue sky. Willow branches swayed in a gentle breeze. No tornado imminent here. Besides, tornadoes announced spring. I needed signs of fall. I grabbed my camera and stuffed my phone into a pocket. Ready.

Spence and I strolled up the driveway. Yellow-orange leaves covered half the trees along the perimeter of the woods. The burning bush in our front yard and a maple across West Creek Road had red leaves. I focused the camera lens on the maple leaves overhead. With multiple bug bites, they looked like red lace.

When I pressed the shutter button, my phone blasted a warning like a toned-down version of the air-raid siren from the sixties. I opened the phone to an exclamation mark in the middle of a triangle with a flashing red outline. I read the message.

Emergency Alert Extreme

Severe Storm Warning     

til 4:00 PM EDT               

Take shelter now              

Check local media            

NWS                                 

Leaves rustled on trees overhead. Spence took giant steps toward the garage. “I’m gonna put the tractor away.”

I followed him at a slower pace. In the garage driveway, I stepped on a ripe black walnut. The green husk squished. Black goo squirted, and my foot rolled on the hard nut inside. I threw my arms wide for balance, grinned at the familiar fall mini-slide, and caught a whiff of the ginger-lemon fragrance of a black walnut husk. Yummy.

Rounding the garage, I saw Spence back the tractor into its garage basement slot. Asters bloomed beside the door. I pointed the camera at the fall flowers and found a bumblebee drinking aster nectar in the view frame.

Spence closed the garage door, and I admired Queen Anne’s Lace―dried and brown, the flower head had curled inward for fall. We moseyed across the field, around the hemlock, and onto the tractor path through the woods. Fresh fallen leaves crackled under our feet.

My phone blasted its sixties air-raid siren.

Emergency Alert Extreme      

Tornado Warning in this area 

til 4:00 PM EDT                     

Take shelter now                     

Check local media                   

NWS                                        

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and wind blew hair into my face. I checked Spence’s face. With his tractor out of harms way, he didn’t look worried. I swished through the leaves on the tractor path all the way to the creek. A few colored leaves drifted down stream while clusters of others formed leaf mats caught on rocks. We followed the creek through the woods.

My phone blasted its siren a third time.

Emergency Alert Extreme  

Flood Warning in this area 

Take shelter now                

Check local media              

NWS                                   

 I switched my gaze from the phone screen to the creek two feet away. Water gurgled and splashed over rocks. “Maybe we should head back,” I said turning to Spence, “since we’re on the flood plane.”

Spence nodded. “On the lower part of the flood plane at that.”

Asters with Bumblebee

We climbed the hill, left the woods, and walked through the field.

My phone blasted its siren for the fourth time.

 

Emergency Alert Extreme        

Tornado Warning in this area   

til 4:15 PM EDT                        

Take shelter now                       

Check local media                     

NWS                                          

Gray clouds raced across the sky.

Thunder rumbled closer.

Wind tossed willow branches as if the trees were ballerinas twirling across a fall decorated stage.

Spence pointed to the road. “You want to see the acorns? They’re a sign of fall.”

I looked from the spot on the road where he pointed to our sturdy log house―a brief jog away. Doable. I followed Spence around the south garden and caught a whiff of freshly turned earth. Near the end of the dug-up, bottom row, the garden fork stood like a sentinel marking where he’d stopped harvesting Red Pontiac potatoes.

Spence reached the road first. “See. They’re everywhere.”

Smashed, hatless, and bitten acorns mixed with empty caps on the berms. While I searched for nuts with caps for a photo, acorns tapped branches then slapped hard onto the dirt road. I stepped away from the oak tree, and my phone blasted its siren yet again.

Emergency Alert Extreme       

Tornado Warning in this area  

til 4:30 PM EDT                      

Take shelter now                     

Check local media                   

NWS                                        

"The clouds have ragged bottoms now," Spence said.

Wind whistled through the trees and cooled my arms with its moist feel that precedes rain. I clutched my camera and jogged toward the house. Rain fell when I sprinted up the deck ramp.

I settled into my Adirondack chair, downloaded photos, and watched the rain pelt the garden.

Spence, who’d walked to the mailbox before coming inside, tossed the mail onto the coffee table. “I can’t hear the wind in here,” he said picking up our cat George. “We’ll sit on the porch and listen to the storm.”

While Spence and George sat on the porch love seat, wind chimes clanged and thunder boomed.

 

Inside, I listed the signs of fall. Had I found ten?

1. Leaf color.

2. Ripe black walnuts.

3. Blooming asters.

4. Dried Queen Anne’s Lace.

5. Leaves crackling, swishing underfoot and floating on Deer Creek.

6. Potato harvest.

7. Acorn showers.

Only seven. I scrunched my nose at the list then glanced through the sliding glass door. Lightning flashed over the south garden. Not the best time to search for more signs. But, I had driven to the YMCA that morning and passed . . .

8. Golden soybean fields.

9. Pumpkins, mums, and corn stalks decorating homes.

And the most obvious sign of fall in rural Western Pennsylvania? A sign we’d detected from inside the log house. I woke and practiced yoga before sunrise. Spence napped or took walks after dinner because he didn’t have enough light for outdoor chores.

10. Fewer hours of daylight.

Mission accomplished. I congratulated myself and felt pleased about finding ten signs for my brother until two days later when Spence made a casual comment during dinner. “The folks at the meeting in Cleveland laughed at my story―me following when you took a walk during a tornado warning.”

Had I been foolish? I hadn’t taken shelter immediately, but I’d noted conditions and took shelter when the rain started. “We didn’t have a tornado.”

“Actually, there was a tornado. It hit a nursing home in Conneautville.”

Thirty-four miles to the northwest? No imminent danger for my walk. I swallowed a bite of Wells Wood pole beans and wondered if the Cleveland meeting folks had laughed at Spence sitting on the porch during the thunderstorm too. Maybe he didn’t mention that part.

Dried Queen Anne's Lace