Autumn Days

It was a flash of white foretelling the future, the fine white coating on the fields along State Road Wednesday morning. Kids in cars cried out, Is it a snow day? Not yet, thought their parents. The first killing frost came late this year; fall has been gentle and colorful and relatively peaceful, elections notwithstanding, and most of us are unwilling to let go quite yet.

This weekend the clocks fall back, giving us an extra hour of sleep and another nudge into winter. Sporting teams are saying farewell to their fall seasons for the most part, as parents on the sidelines reminisced about years past when their minikickers had to wear parkas on the pitch before the last game came.

Horses sported sheets in pastures overnight. Trick or treaters hid the details of their costumes under down vests. Indoors, the blankets came out but most people still held off on turning on the heat.

The summer farmers’ markets reappeared, indoors, as the so-called winter farmers’ markets. Not so fast; the feeling in the agricultural hall is all fall, butternuts and kale and music and no need, up to now anyway, to dig out those winter gloves.

Even scallopers on their family permits were out last weekend, the first they could be in most Island ponds, mostly without gloves. Snug and miraculously dry inside waders, they appeared like a sudden migration of sea creatures, in clumps, cheek-by-jowelly dipnet, but there were scallops enough for all to get their fill from the Lagoon Pond. The sound of quietly snapping shells traveled into truck beds and turned to the sound of lip-smacking around tables as Vineyarders revelled in feeding themselves so well. Living local was the Island way long before it was a marketing slogan.

It was a good Island summer and a lovely autumn. It’s going to get tougher, most Islanders know from experience. But the simplest pleasures will be more plentiful. These are the seasons when year-rounders enjoy selfishly much of what others come here to enjoy on their vacations — time for family, friends, books, walking, watching the world move slowly enough really to appreciate each moment. When we come together as a community in these months, they are the warmest of all.