It was only four or five months ago when we gathered the gear and placed it all outside.
The plastic cloth went on the patio table, the seasonal dinnerware put into use. The pots were filled with geraniums and the flower basket hung. The hammock was pulled from who knows where, and positioned under a tree.
Summer came, and summer went, and now we do the drill in reverse.
Call it the backyard equivalent of closing the cottage for winter.
The flowers were looking scraggly and the hammock was covered in leaves.
“You want the hanging basket down?” asked the husband. “It’s still blooming. A bit anyway.”
“I’m tired of it,” I said. “It’s starting to look as out of place as, oh, white pants in October. Let’s get rid of it.”
The contents went into the bin.
The plastic tablecloth was brought inside, since that’s where we tend to dine these days. We rolled up the hoses and put them in the shed, since Mother Nature will be handling the watering now.
For months, we’d observed happy hour on the folding chairs in the middle of the lawn, but the time was right to put them away. We’ll be taking happy hour in the living room.
The ceramic pots, which had blasted the steps of the deck with colour for the last many weeks, were emptied and cleaned and stacked in the crawl space.
Away went the watering can, and the sprinklers and the citronella candles. Away went the pillows from the patio set.
That’s not to say the backyard won’t be used in the coming weeks, but we’ll be doing more raking than reclining.
That’s not to say that we won’t welcome the days of autumn, the cool, misty mornings, the crunch of leaves underfoot.
Not to say we won’t relish bringing in the firewood and reaching for a sweater and eating stews instead of salads.
But still. The ritual — performed one way in June and the opposite right about now — is not insignificant.
The seasons have changed, and so has the look of the property.
Summer, it seems to me, doesn’t end simply when the calendar informs me it has.
Summer ends when we put it away.
