Up the slope, the wind:
asters bend, the brown grass trembles,
air is chill.

August Derleth

EPHEMERIS FOR THE SECOND WEEK OF EARLY FALL
The Monarch Butterfly Moon enters its last quarter at 12:04 a.m. on the September 22. A little later on the same morning (at 10:44 a.m.), equinox occurs. After that date, the chances of highs in the 90s fall sharply along the 40th Parallel, and even 80s will be gone by the middle of October.

WIND SURFING
    “It’s such a beautiful afternoon!” my wife declared. “You’re crazy if you stay inside playing with your computer. There’s a wonderful breeze, too. Come on out and do things in the yard!”
    Indeed, it was an extraordinary day. The sun was bright and warm. A southwest wind swept mare’s tails and mackerel scallops above the village. The wind was light and cool, perfect for cleaning up the woodpile and for clearing off the back patio.
    Hurricane Ike had struck Galveston and Houston the day before and was heading north, but the computer radar showed most of the rain staying to the east of Yellow Springs, and there was no sign of rain in the sky. So I gave in to the fine weather, put aside what I should have done inside and went out and rearranged the wood, took inventory of what I should split, set the kindling to one side, and estimated how many more truckloads I would need before January.
    By three o’clock, the wind was growing a bit stronger and the cirrus and altostratus clouds thickened. Gusts came from the south and then the west, and the trees and honeysuckles that encircled the yard were starting to sway back and forth. I went to the covered porch to rest a little, and soon my wife and I decided it was better to watch the afternoon than to work in it.
    There was so much to see and feel. Cabbage butterflies and small, orange fold-winged butterflies continued to visit the dahlias and butterfly bushes. The sparrows had fed sporadically earlier in the day; now they flocked to the swinging feeders, descending from the unstable canopy, down by the dozen, sometimes, I thought, up to a hundred birds fighting for a place on the perches and literally covering the ground to forage for seed. A family of cardinals – a male, female and four fledglings – joined the frenzy off and on, then chickadees, finches and nuthatches.  
    By four o’clock, leaves were coming down into the backyard, and small branches from the locust trees were landing close by our vantage point. The more the leaves blanketed the grass, the more the sparrows loved it, abandoning the feeders to find insects. The arabesque orbweaver spider that had spun a giant web below the roof was forced to retire, its web cut away. Our peach tree let all its peaches go. The tall Jerusalem artichoke plants I had been nurturing fell flat into the herbs below them.
    Now the sound of sirens and cracking branches started to accompany the squalls.  A tree collapsed in the woodlot behind our property. A terrified squirrel clung flat against the trunk of our osage tree, scrambling up and then down, then just hanging on. Small branches started falling on the roof of the porch. The cushion on the lawn chair next to me flew by, landing against the back of another chair.
    But we sat there, mesmerized, unwilling to move until the air grew a little cold. Then we went in for supper, and while we were eating, the lights went out and the wind shifted to the north, bringing down three great white mulberry branches and a box elder tree at the northwest corner of our property.
    We told one of our daughters about our afternoon, but she wasn’t impressed with our reckless watching. She lives in Miami Beach and has seen a few hurricanes.
    “You’re just like the crazy people who go out surfing before the storm,” she said.