Labor Day weekend has many meanings. Once an important “book end” to the summer, to celebrate working people, it seems to have slipped into being just another Monday that banks, post offices, etc. are closed and some people, not all, are off from work.

I know people who have big parties that weekend or go on picnics. If you are a public-school student in Michigan, there is an air of sadness because school is about to start again. One of my happiest childhood memories is of picnics on the shore of Lake Superior that my family often took at that time. We’d go to the windward side of the Keweenaw Peninsula where the water would be the warmest—surface water carried by wind and waves to the shore—so it wasn’t as cold as Lake Superior usually is. We could swim for longer and not have our teeth chattering.

Here in Michigan’s U.P., it’s another reminder, along with some maples beginning to turn color, that summer is over and we’d all better get ready for winter’s arrival. I can feel the change: the nights are colder; dew covers my car in the morning; the sky is a deeper blue; the air is crisp; leaves that aren’t turning are “old” green, as if they are tired and ready to call it a day. They started out pale green, full of life and hope. Then tuned to full deep summer green, producing food for the tree for the day and storing more in the roots for the future. Now they’re almost done.

The geese are around—somewhere but not around every day and you can’t tell the “kids” from their parents anymore. Same with the ducks and the robins who took over my porch in June. Hummingbirds are fighting over the feeders and I’m refilling them with more sugar water every few days. The petunias have fewer blooms and no new growth. The sun is almost back to a 12/12 time, making it dark when I get up in the morning. Yes, I’m an early riser. And the earlier-in-the-evening sun set sends its rays almost straight down the hall since our lake camp sits east/west.

Labor Day reminds us that we’d better take some time to enjoy the last gasp of summer before it’s gone. Most of all, nothing ever stays the same. The year goes on and the seasons change whether we are ready or not, and whether we like it or not.