I’ve been thinking about excess today.  I know the traditional season of excess is December, but we’ve just had Halloween, a holiday marked in our house by ridiculous levels of candy consumption, hyperactive behavior, and sugar comas.  We’ve spent the last year being bombarded with news of the election and political mailings and calls.  Meanwhile, the newspapers shriek about the failed economy and the excesses of credit-backed spending that many of us must now curb.  It all feels like it’s been a little too much.

In my yard, the season of excess is late summer.  Come August and September, the weeds are too thick, the air too soupy, the heat too intense, and the mosquitoes too hungry, for me to venture out for more than the most perfunctory of watering chores.  I get overwhelmed, in the summer, and keep myself inside, in the cool of the air conditioning, reading my garden magazines and wistfully staring out the window.  I won’t even go out on the screen porch because the oppressive damp curls in and finds me even there. 

Not so in autumn. Late October and early November is the best time, when the rampant growth of summer has been knocked down by the first light frosts, and the mosquitoes have finally retreated.  We spent the morning canvassing a neighborhood for our candidate and then came home to begin our first leaf-blowing session of the fall.  Little Man, still in his Spiderman costume from last night, was in charge of stomping the leaves down in the yard waste container.  The air was a pleasant 63 degrees, without a mosquito in sight.  I looked across the yard I’ve neglected and, for once, instead of seeing all the undone chores, I saw perfect beauty:  bright yellow leaves strewn across grass grown rsconsul_green from the fall rains, and an oakleaf hydrangea turning unbelievable shades of crimson and burgundy.  The late afternoon sunlight filtered through the golden trees holding just enough leaves to carry the wind.  Not too many, not too few.  Just enough.

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