Searching for a new color | #hacking | #cybersecurity | #infosec | #comptia | #pentest | #hacker

For weeks I’ve been waiting for fall, expecting it to be fall, wondering why it is not fall. I did not travel this summer and felt every sweltering summer day, saw heat fumes on parking lot blacktop, cursed the high price of running my air conditioner … When will it be fall?

Someone explained to me that there is a difference between astrological seasons, based on the calendar and the equal amount of day and night, vs. meteorological seasons, based on temperature cycles.

By now I should have figured out that fall comes late, spring ends early and summer lasts for longer than anyone can imagine.

Patience.

Fall unfolds slowly. First a few brown leaves muck up the rain gullies. The gingko trees along the Esplanade turn from green to a strange shade of light green. I will think I smell autumn in the air — that earthy scent of decay — and then we have another day when I wake up and go to bed with sweat on my brow.

Until the big chill, there are other ways to enjoy the season.

People have started to scatter plastic pumpkins on their front lawns, providing an unnatural orange glow to the neighborhood. On my drive to the big-box stores, I pass fabric ghosts hanging from trees. Pumpkins are piled up in front of grocery stories like pirate treasure in a hidden cave.

My younger sister Tania was in town last weekend, when the weather was inching toward 100 degrees. This did not stop us from visiting the Patrick Ranch Museum along the Midway (Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., $6 adults, $3 for kids), for the October autumn festival. We waved at children riding the trolley around the ranch and were tempted to buy candy apples.

We wandered through the pumpkin vines and my sister played her new Native American flute. We saw the heavy load of persimmons hanging in the trees in front of the Glenwood farmhouse. However, we were wearing shorts and filled up our canteens twice.

The weather remained hot the next day, which meant my sister and I were required to have ice cream at downtown’s La Flor de Michochan. The best deal is the canasta, which is three scoops of ice cream and fruit. The fruit means it counts as a meal.

The good news is that temperatures should dive 20 degrees lower starting next week.

The truth is that fall is right on schedule and I am truly impatient.

I looked through the photos from fall 2025 on my camera and saw a photo of a tree by the creek. The top was red and the bottom was green, half-and half. This was Nov. 3.

Next, I checked online for fall weather timetables and found a limited, yet amusing Fall Foliage Prediction map, https://smokymountains.com/fall-foliage-map.  The map-makers are a bit off, however, no one claimed it was any more than a prediction. The map says we should see partial fall foliage this week and the next, with peak color by Oct. 27.

The website does not indicate the timing of when I can stop shaving my legs and freshen my sweaters in the dryer with scented dryer sheets.

Garden enthusiast Heather Hacking loves when you share what’s growing on. Reach out at sowtheregardencolumn@gmail.com, and snail mail at P.O. Box 5166, Chico CA 95927.