My son woke up cranky last Monday, tired, after two full weeks, of going to school every day.

“I’ll never have time to finish my airplane,” he complained as he pushed himself deeper under the covers. He’s got a project going on his workbench in the barn, building another plane for his stuffed frog Bentley. This one, he’s making out of saplings that he cut down, split and whittled into strips to bend for the fuselage. They’re soaking in a tub of water, and he’s sure that if only he didn’t have to spend his days in school, Bentley would be flying by now.

My son likes school, especially since he has a nature- and science-loving teacher, but every day? It seems excessive.

I know how he feels. This time of year there’s so much to do in the real world that spending time in the car and the office seems crazy.
There are wild grapes to pick, and crabapples and hawthorn and rose hips, and then all that jelly to make. There are Jerusalem artichokes to dig up, and this year I really should pickle some. I know where there are beech nuts too — I saw them falling on a road out behind my in-laws’ field. That cranky son and I should go gather them. They’re good roasted.

This time of year I feel a little like a squirrel, scurrying about to gather nuts and berries, only I store my stash in jars and freezer bags instead of tree hollows. Like the squirrels, we stay connected to the turning of the world, to the seasons, by being outdoors, collecting and observing. Unlike the squirrels, we combine gathering food with aimless rambles through the woods, noting all the animals we see, sketching the birds and flowers, picking up pine cones and rocks and sticks that we admire but will never eat.

There’s something poetic about the fall, the deep blue skies, the winds that blow both warm and cold. Or maybe it’s just that in first grade we memorized Michael Flanders’ “Song of the Weather” and the stanzas ring truest in the fall: “Brown October brings the pheasant/Then to gather nuts is pleasant.” Although I tend to see more turkeys than pheasants.

We’re savoring the light while it lasts, the warmth while it lasts, the end of the gardens. We’re noting the movements of our wild friends too — toads, coyotes, herons, a little black-and-white corn snake that showed up, probably in a load of corn stalks my husband cut for the oxen from a friend’s field down in Wilton. A moose wandered through that field last week, and it’s filled with Canada geese right now, gorging on dropped grain and depositing fertilizer for next year’s crop.

We know we’re lucky that we still live in a fairly undeveloped area, where nights are dark and quiet, where you can take long, aimless walks in the evenings, picking wildflowers on the way home.

We’re lucky not to live in smog, or heavy traffic, or crowded in among housing developments that obscure the night sky and blot out the sounds of the night animals. We’re lucky that we can live in all the seasons of the year.

Soon enough, we’ll be spending dark nights indoors around the stove, and my son will have to transfer his whittling projects indoors.

The plane will get built or, if it doesn’t, it will because he’s on to another project that’s bigger, better and will fly higher. He never stays cranky for long, not even on Mondays.

After eating his pancakes, and being promised a long walk to the dam and the overlook when I got home from work, he cheered up.

“Happy first day of fall, Mom,” he said. He gave me a hug, put on his backpack and headed out, with his sister, for the school bus.

Margaret Hartley is the Gazette’s Sunday and features editor. Greenpoint appears in the Gazette’s print edition Sundays on the Environment page.

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