Twelve Moons of the Year. September 02.

Significant sentences from The Twelve Moons of the Year by Hal Borland, a chronology of the New England seasons. September 02.

"This is gossamer season, when a dozen different strands glint and glimmer in the sunlight. Gossamer stands, strong as steel, light as feathers...at sunrise, a lacing of silver threads over grass and bushes, glinting with dew drops...." p. 247.

"...the Harvest Moon is not a hasty moon...comes early and stays late...was a time when the Harvest Moon gave the busy farmer the equivalent of an extra day or two...could return to the fields after supper and evening milking and continue his harvest by moonlight...when corn was cut by hand and husked by hand, when shocks tepeed the fields...." p. 248.

"Hickories, still bountiful with ripening nuts, look almost as tired as the elms; their leaves droop and seem to be rusting out like old tin cans." p. 250.

"...the golden mildness of early autumn comforts the land." p. 251.

"Crickets, briefly silenced by the first frost, trill the warm afternoons toward the dusk when the last, loud katydids join the chorus.l" p. 251.

"Some talk of Indian summer and some merely say it's a good time to be alive." p. 251.

"Life now begins to relax into the annual pause that is a kind of biological Indian summer, a time of relative ease and quiet." p. 253.

"...a countryman...plucks and cans his tomatoes, brings in his winter squash...has picked his beans, pickled his beets, chopped his cabbage and peppers into relish." p. 254.

"Goldenrod fades. Queen Anne's lace is worn and tattered...." p. 254.

"With a greater wealth of wildflowers than any other land on earth, this country could be a floral Eden." p. 254.

"...the flickers are flocking." p. 255.