At four am the sky has cleared but the winds continue to blow. A calm wind would signals greater danger. Cold air has ventured in from Canada. Usually at sunrise the wind dies. A clear sky with no wind allows a frost to settle. The sunrise could kill!

The weather forecaster has warned of frost, our first frost of the season which will kill the tender plants in our northeastern Minnesota gardens. A first frost requires the harvesting of tomatoes still green on the vine. Most will ripen of hidden under newspaper over the next four or five weeks.

Flowers I don’t cover with an old bed sheet or bring into the apartment from the deck will no longer brighten my life with blooming. Summer like temperatures, even non freezing nighttime temperatures, will continue for many more days. How many days is now a whim of nature. At some point, but not yet, autumn will enter with the hammer of temperatures in the middle twenty degrees Fahrenheit as the window to big cold flows of arctic air opens.

The frost brings the color of the hardwood trees which populate the ridge of highland next to the Lake (and the leaf peepers from the big city). I love the color of the leaves turning. (I guess I love peepers also since peepers usually spend. Local waitstaff, barkeeps and restauranteurs with extra money are happy people. Happy local people!)

However I don’t yet want the colors of my flowers to disappear from my life just yet so I will play cat and mouse with the frost.