So long, Summer 2026. We had some hot, (sometimes relentless) sunny weather, another drought, worse than in 2025 — and then, ultimately, a most beautiful September, and finally rain for the gardens and fall crops.

We had whales, sharks, big jellyfish, tuna in Penobscot Bay, and a heatwave in early July that beat the books. But the heat was counterbalanced by gardens laden with fruit and vegetables (if you took time to water every day).

The winds changed, as they do in September, and now the Midcoast is feeling like frost will be around the corner. 

But if we didn't like meteorological change, we wouldn't be living in Maine, the land of rapidly shifting air masses and sometimes very weird weather. So out with summer, and in with autumn!

At 8:05 p.m., Sept. 22, Eastern Standard Time, Fall 2026, will officially be ushered in by the autumnal equinox, that celestial instance when day and night are of equal length (equinox, from Latin, means equal night). The autumnal equinox occurs when the sun's movement crosses the celestial equator moving from north to south.

From the website EarthSky: "Because Earth doesn’t orbit upright, but is instead tilted on its axis by 23-and-a-half degrees, earth’s northern and southern hemispheres trade places in receiving the sun’s light and warmth most directly. We have an equinox twice a year – spring and fall – when the tilt of the earth’s axis and earth’s orbit around the sun combine in such a way that the axis is inclined neither away from nor toward the sun."

The equinox is the great equalizer. It is the time, twice in a year, when just about everywhere on earth is privy to 12 hour of day and 12 hours of night. Now, the days will get shorter and shorter, until late December, when we will be putting our lights on at 3:30 p.m. and rising in the dark morning to greet the day. A far cry from those short, sweet nights of July, when the last glimpse of daylight was visible until 10 p.m. and the birds were signing at 4 a.m. -- if not all night long.

Here we go, though. Time to stack the wood, bank the house, pull sweaters out of the drawers, and harvest the garden. For many, it is the favorite time of year. One thing is certain: it won't last.