Seasons change

It’s remarkable how quickly a season passes.

Each spring, when the apple blossoms arrive, I pause to take it in. Those first blooms feel like a promise—warmer days ahead, the orchard stirring awake, and nature preparing another quiet spectacle.

All summer, I watch.

I walk the rows to check on the trees, following the slow weight of fruit as it develops. I even talk to them sometimes. A few words of encouragement never hurt.

By late summer, I find myself almost unreasonably excited as green apples begin to blush with pink, red, and gold. Then, almost overnight, bins appear in tidy stacks at the ends of the rows. The branches bow under the weight of Honeycrisp and Cosmic Crisp, and I can’t help but sigh.

They’ve worked so hard.

Soon, the stillness gives way. Hands reach into the branches, twisting fruit free. The orchard fills with voices, music, laughter, and the steady rhythm of work. A table might appear with food and cold drinks, and in the quiet moments, you can hear birds slipping through the rows, hoping for what’s been left behind.

Harvest is hard to describe unless you’ve seen it. It is abundance and fatigue, celebration and relief—the end of months spent tending, waiting, worrying, and hoping.

And always, for me, a trace of melancholy.

Autumn is my favorite season, and I love watching the orchard change. But as harvest approaches, I feel a strange heaviness—not for myself, but for the trees.

These trees that have been pruned and guided, coaxed toward the sun, watered in dry weeks, and protected when they were vulnerable. Year after year, they are asked to take what the earth offers and turn it into abundance.

And every year, they do.

Eventually, the branches are bare again. The bins are gone, the voices fade, and the orchard settles back into quiet.

The trees rest.

It may sound foolish, but when it’s over, I walk among the empty branches and quietly say thank you—for all they give.

Christine