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JoAnn Shannon

Riding into Autumn


It felt like summer would last forever

When my father was younger and his days weren’t consumed with sore limbs, medication and long naps, he used to welcome autumn by roaring into the house and announcing, “The frost is on the pumpkin.”

This year, the first of September marched into Michigan with a breezy thirty-nine degrees Fahrenheit. Captain, my horse, quickened his gait and gave the mostly green trees a second glance. “Isn’t it a little early for all this?” he seemed to be asking.

It managed to warm up during the second week of the ninth month, but I couldn’t get the phrase, “The frost is on the pumpkin,” out of my head. I discovered the reference in a poem by James Whitcomb Riley.


No frost on these pumpkins

"When the Frost is on the Punkin"

By James Whitcomb Riley


When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,

And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,

And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,

And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;

O, it’s then’s the times a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,

With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,

As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.


Admittedly, I had to look up several words:

Fodder: Food, especially dried hay or feed, for cattle and other livestock

Shock: Grain or stalks of corn set up in a field

Kyouck: The sound a turkey makes

Guineys: Guineas, a vigorous, hardy, and largely disease-free birds

Hallylooyer: Not found! If you know it, please share.


In the meantime, I’ll spy on Finn and Captain to see if I can catch them hallylooyering by the fence.



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