Earth cycles (Wisconsin, thoughts from Brazil)

I awoke this morning with that strong sensation of the days of autumn (I know, it is spring here now).

The days of autumn start for me with the blooming of the white star clematis vine on the side of the house at my Madison home. I always starting to bloom in the days just before my son's September birthday. There were pumpkins still to haul from the garden, my daughter once eager to sell them street-side, and way too many leaves from the maples and the neighbor's huge cottonwood to be raked up and put under in the garden or into the composting pile. Canada geese gathered on the football field over the back fence at the local High School. Soon the cool evenings would be lit up by the field lights and fans' shouting in favor or against activities on the field,

This was always a time for a drive into the Baraboo hills (Baxter's Hollow) to see the beginning signs of color that start with the aspen and move to the maples, to the east toward Devil's Lake to stop and pick up frozen apple pies and gallons of cider to freeze (maybe a couple to ferment) and maybe hunt for some of the last grapes harvested to try making wine (mostly frustrated by the final quality but always thrilled watching it all bubble in the glass carboys).

And the animals in motion.... sandhill cranes, if one was lucky enough, would slowly spiral upwards towards the upper winds where they would blast off to places south. Large V's of geese headed toward final feeding stops around the marshes where they might just be diverted by waiting hunters. It was always more spectacular around Horicon Marsh. Sitting in a jon boat halfway up the main canal on some shallow sidewater, so many kinds of waterfowl would flash past, eager to stay away from people, quick to find a solitary resting spot for their long trip to wherever. Even the larger animals in motion.... deer with less cover into the rutting season, beaver moving to and from their dams putting on final winter touches, a not-so-distant but hidden pileated woodpecker blasting a hole into some softwood tree for whatever reason that they do that.

I live in a different place today. Today begins our spring. That doesn't mean anything like it does in Wisconsin where we await the first urban crocus or daffodil or the pasque flower in the rural areas. It doesn't really mean much at all when one is a touch over 7 degrees south of the equator, except that there will be no freezing rain, no black ice, no piles of snow to uncover from. In a way that is good but in another way, well, I'm from Wisconsin!