Musings
~ by Mark Blackwell
Brown County Seasons
Like most places in the Midwest, Brown County has four regular seasons. It also has about eight to twelve sub-seasons, depending on the year. We just finished up one of those sub-seasons which turned out to be about the hottest“ Dog Days” I can remember. It was so hot this year, according to a friend of mine, his hens were layin’ hardboiled eggs. He said he lost some of his chickens when they up and headed off to KFC in the belief that conditions there couldn’ t be any worse. But things are getting better now as we head into another one of those sub-seasons,“ Late Summer Brown County Appreciation season.” While the LSBCA season is not as famous as our fall, there are those who enjoy the calm quiet days between the beginning of squirrel season and the first turning of the foliage. Days that start with cool mornings and stretch into warm afternoons punctuated with the whirring of grasshoppers and katydids, and the lonesome calls of mourning doves. It is a time of anticipation. A time of nature beginning its metamorphosis into autumnal glory.
The misty mornings, warm days, and cool evenings are perfect for hiking, camping, canoeing, and a whole lot of other outdoors stuff. If you are enjoying a visit to Brown County at this time, then you are a participant and a contributor to the LSBCA season, and I thank you. For the local folks it’ s time to gather in the last of the garden harvest and time to check the water level in the cistern. Also, it’ s time to start thinking about getting in enough firewood to get through one of Brown County’ s later seasons.
After the last grasshopper sings its song there is a noticeable shift in the daylight. When the cool mornings turn to downright chilly, and the woodstove has been fired up a time or two, there comes a day when the green hues of the trees of summer give way to the brown, gold, yellow, and red of fall. A quiet call goes out from the hills and hollers beckoning to every person with an artistic soul.
It really was artists, at the turn of the 20th Century, who discovered the rustic charm of the hills and touted
30 Our Brown County • Sept./ Oct. 2024