Fall's Many Faces

Is anyone ever impatient for the season's first frost? Probably not, and yet, when it comes, there is no denying its magic.  Every leaf, every seed pod, every blade of grass takes on a new identity, dressed in costume for an ice palace ball. And since we know that it isn't winter, and it isn't snow, we feel that once the sun rises high enough, the frost will disappear, and the now-beautiful will turn Cinderella-dowdy.

Here comes the sun! Dowdy? How could anyone forget for a minute the beauty returning autumn sunlight would bring to roadsides, orchard trees, and blue Lake Michigan? South Fox Island never looked as close as it seemed on this sunny fall day.

Rain returned in Tuesday, for Election Day, but it didn't keep voters from the polls in our township. I went to town early and found no waiting line at all. Light inside the firehall coming through the doors shone on red maple leaves plastered to the pavement, and the red maple on Mill Street, always at its brightest on the day we go to vote, did its part to add a festive air to the important day.