Autumn: the season of greatest change in the Tehachapi Mountains

Jon Hammond.

A gravid female Western Gray Squirrel, apparently going to produce a litter late in the year, rests her pregnant belly on a dead tree branch.

After spending more than 50 years observing the seasons change in the Tehachapi Mountains, I've reached the conclusion that autumn is the most transitional of the four seasons.

There is noticeable change during each of our three-month long seasons, of course, but the differences are the most dramatic from the beginning to the end of fall.

Summer, for example, is more stable: when summer officially begins about June 21 each year, the grasses are dry on the hillsides, the trees have all leafed out, the days are warm or even hot; when summer ends about September 21, the grasses are still dry, nearly all the trees are still leafed out (except California Buckeyes) and the days are still either warm or actually hot.

When autumn starts in the third week in September, it is just like late summer, with garden flowers blooming, ripe tomatoes hanging from their fragrant vines, and lawns are still green and require mowing.

Jon Hammond.

As autumn progresses, the Valley Oak leaves turn golden yellow and then carpet the ground underneath the beautiful craggy trees that produced them.

As autumn progresses, the nights get cooler first and then the days stop warming up as much, even at midday. Leaves starting turning color as the chlorophyll drains out of them. The lighting changes as the sun appears to move southward in the sky.

The nights continue to get colder until early morning risers start seeing not dew but light frost on the windshields of their cars and trucks. Eventually there will be a hard killing frost and those tomato vines will die and turn dark. A hard frost will also darken the mulberry leaves on trees throughout town and they'll come drifting down rapidly, leaving the mulberry trees bare in just a couple of days. Tehachapi kids suddenly have a wealth of leaves in which to play, and their parents start reaching for their rakes and leaf-blowers.

The summer flowers like marigolds, petunias and zinnias, turn lifeless. Lawns stop needing watering, let alone mowing. Pumpkins appear on front porches and have their own moment in the spotlight, and then they too are gone as autumn marches on. The oak acorns, which were still green and raining down when the season started, all end up on the ground and have turned chestnut brown or ebony black.

Apples had their peak in September and October, and there aren't many left by the time November arrives. By the end of November, there are none. Tehachapi Warriors fans who attended the early games in short-sleeved shirts are wearing their heaviest coats by the time playoff games start.

Towering deciduous trees that still had their leaves when the migrating Turkey Vultures arrived as overnight guests in September and October are just bare limbs, branches and twigs by Thanksgiving.

December will be here soon, and most people's thoughts turn to Christmas and the end of another year. There are fires in fireplaces and woodstoves through the Tehachapi Mountains, and we've often had an early snowstorm or two by the time autumn draws to a close on December 21.

Animals that were still encountered daily at the start of the season, like ground squirrels and lizards, are now hidden away from the cold. The butterflies, grasshoppers, crickets and other insects are gone.

Jon Hammond.

Canyon Oak acorns are short and stout, with very thick acorn caps.

I hope you've been enjoying our Tehachapi fall season as much as I have, and have taken the time to notice and savor the changes. There's only a month left of autumn to enjoy. . .

Keep enjoying the beauty of life in the Tehachapi Mountains.

Jon Hammond is a fourth generation Kern County resident who has photographed and written about the Tehachapi Mountains for 38 years. He lives on a farm his family started in 1921, and is a speaker of Nuwä, the Tehachapi Indian language. He can be reached at [email protected].