Dear Reader,
I have been waiting for fall since the last cool days of March. Sometimes in Florida we do have to pretend it is fall, although the other night was actually pleasant and had a scent of fall in the air. It wasn’t drowningly humid and it was below 90 degrees by 5:00 PM: but we still wear our fall t-shirts and light our pumpkin scented candles!
Fall in Florida is just different than the rest of the country, and many Floridians have never really accepted that fact. Fall is drastically different even if you go just a few hours north of where I live; the evenings actually get cool enough to wear a sweater. I took my siblings to a football game a few Fridays ago, and the only reason people were wearing jackets is because it was raining. But what is fall in Florida like when you really just take it for what it is?
Leaves
Most of our leaves do not change from green to a drastic orange during the fall, they go from a change from a lighter green to a dark green, and then turn brown and fall off in the late winter. But there are some trees that change color during the fall, especially the cypress trees. They turn to a golden brown and yellow and glow like some sort of fairytale scene when the sunset hits just right on them. The grass turns to a dark green and golden brown too during this time, and when you scan the pasture, everything just seems to flow into the direction of the cypress trees that crown everything with their high tops.
Outdoor activities
While fall may signal a slowdown in outdoor activities in other places, it marks a significant uptick in outdoor activities in Florida. Many street fairs, rodeo series, farmer’s markets, and horsemanship clinics are held in the fall and continue into the spring just because the summer heat and rains make it unbearable and sometimes impossible to hold an outdoor event. Just like ranchers in the north start to liven up when the snow starts to melt, southern ranchers start to become more active when the weather cools down, even if that just means the highs are in the low 80’s instead of the mid 90’s.
Hurricanes
Fall in Florida is also still part of hurricane season, which runs from June 1st to November 30th. All hurricane season means is that for one part of the year it is likely there will be a hurricane and for the other half there is still a chance for a hurricane. If a hurricane comes, everyone hopes it is in the fall because if the power goes out and we have to survive without a/c, the weather is a little bit more tolerable. If a hurricane comes in the fall, it also means that school is let out for a few days and we get a cool front after the hurricane comes through. It also means hurricane parties and snacks that are pumpkin spice flavors.
Dry Ground
This year we have had a surprisingly dry summer. Not dry enough to make a rancher panic, but enough to raise an eyebrow and wonder about the winter. But Autumn marks the beginning of the dry season which means that the ground dries out enough that you can actually do something out in a pasture without getting bogged down. Autmn is a time for mowing pastures, grazing the spots that are usually under water in the summer, and for starting those colts that couldn’t get started when the round pen was a bog.
Even though fall is not quite as cool and cozy as we would like in Florida, we still have found ways to adapt fall things to Florida weather. We still do fall pumpkin patch pictures, just in short sleeves, and we still have bonfires, we just bring bug spray. And we do some of our own fall traditions, like going to the beach when school is out for a hurricane.
Happy Fall Y’all!
The Rancher’s Daughter
