September 30

It is fitting that the new moon comes when September is at an end. The changes are undeniable now, much as we would prefer to keep these warm and clear New England days forever. We have been blessed with two weeks of sun-filled days, of blue skies the color of cobalt, where the most distant peaks of Wachusett are clear to see in the dry air. Equally so the night sky has been a wonder of stars, cooler now, where the crickets that remain have begun to struggle in their cadence.

It’s too easy to use the struggle analogy this time of year, when there’s sign enough that nature is increasingly content with letting go. But these signs need not be solely thought of in terms of decay or endings; there is magnificence in this transition as much as there is decline.

Take our white pines out front as an example. They, like many throughout the town are becoming beautifully two-toned now. A misconception is that pines don’t lose their needles like the deciduous trees; the vibrant sugar maples that will soon typify this fact. The truth is that most conifers do thin this time of year, particularly when the late summer and early autumn have been in drought. Just now our white pines are showing brown needles, and it is the case that such pines often drop 1/3 of their needles each year. It is partly to lessen water loss, now that photosynthesis has diminished and partly to simply account for senescence.

The result is a pleasing two-tone of greens and browns among the boughs, whereupon soon enough the ground beneath will gather another carpet layer of soft brown needles once they fall.