Farewell to September and Other Good-byes.

A fall morning in my little meadow.

The season has definitely shifted. The world is changing quickly now. All the vigor of summer is vanishing. The garden is dying. Even the weeds look old and tired. The earth is cooling as the power of the sun diminishes. That may sound depressing, but there is a current of excitement running through it. Autumn is a season of drastic change and I find it exhilarating. Nature’s journey into dormancy and death is colorful and dramatic. The transformation of my garden is too. Stripping the garden down to the ground is sad and thrilling at the same time. Even as I say good-bye to this year’s flowers, fruit, and vegetables, I like to see the garden slate wiped clean. I’ve begun the process, but we haven’t had frost yet, so most of the garden is still waiting.

On Tuesday I took my parents over to visit my father’s cousin, Dick Young, just up the road in Newfield. Dick is the son of my Great Aunt Eleanor, my grandfather’s sister. He is two years younger than my father. We had a nice visit, sitting and chatting, reminiscing and catching up on family news. Dick (my children always call him Uncle Dick even though he is technically their first cousin twice removed) is one of the kindest men I know. He lives alone now that his wife Helen died, but he has children and grandchildren here and they take good care of him. I should go visit him more often.

A visit with "Uncle" Dick.

On Wednesday my parents left to return home. It was wonderful having them here. I loved being with them. I loved just having them in the house. It felt so good just to see them sitting and reading in the living room. It was good to sit and talk together. Saying good-bye to them was so hard. I inherited my mother’s dislike of good-byes. We are both weepers at partings. This time seemed especially hard for me. Miriam and Josiah drove them home. It took them two days. They stopped the first night in Ohio and visited with Elijah (one of John and Mindy’s sons) and his wife. With my parents’ departure we reach the end of our summer visitors. Now we hunker down for the long cold season.

Good-bye to my parents.

Several days last week it was cool enough that we lit a fire in the wood stove. It seems a bit early for that, but the house was chilly and we had very little sunshine to warm things up. I love our wood stove. It gives off such satisfying heat. Knowing that the days we’ll need to use it will only increase, I moved my potted plants off the back porch and into the house and now will begin stacking firewood on the porch.

We had more rain and wind during the week. It was rainy most of the week. The wind toppled my top heavy morning glory trellis again and this time the damage was irreparable. The plants were torn out by their roots. I had to pull the whole thing out. I was sad to see those morning glories go. There are others still blooming in other places in the garden, but that trellis was the best of them and now they are gone.

My toppled trellis.

Despite the chill that is settling in, we have not had frost yet. My records show that we’ve had frost by now in almost every year since I started keeping records. Because of that, I have some odd flowers blooming – there are poppies blooming just as if it was May and one of my irises has buds. Some of the summer flowers are still holding on but are looking tired. The autumn blooming colchicums are at their best right now.

A late blooming poppy.

My colchicums.

I harvested more pumpkins and all my butternut squash last week. It was a good harvest. The only pumpkins still out in the garden are the ones that are too big for me to move by myself. I’m waiting for Josiah to help me with those. He’ll be home later tonight. I have lots of things planned for us to do during the week. The project list is still long and the days are growing short.

Pumpkins and squash.

Finally at the end of the week the weather cleared. Friday and Saturday were perfect fall days. On Saturday morning as I went up stairs to shower, I looked out the window at the top of the stairs (as I do most mornings) to look over the garden and orchard. There in the predawn light I saw five deer in the orchard. I’ve been seeing more and more evidence of deer activity in the orchard lately. They can’t resist my ripe heirloom apples. By the hoof prints and droppings, I thought there might be one or two deer. I never expected to see five. I wouldn’t mind them if they only ate the fallen apples, but they eat the ones still on the trees. It will soon be time to pick the rest of the apples. Then what will the deer do? The poor things (read that with sarcasm). After I dressed, I went down to do the morning chores. The sunrise was lovely. I love fall mornings.

Deer in the orchard.

Sunrise Saturday.

I spent a large part of the day on Saturday working with my potted plants. I had to make room for the ones that spent the summer outdoors by rearranging the ones that stay indoors year round. Some of the plants needed to be repotted. I had to spray the outdoor plants with (an organic) insecticide to keep them from bringing pest indoors. Now the bay windows upstairs and down and the window shelves in the music room are full and lush with plants, but outside the house it looks a little bare.

Repotting plants to move indoors.

The music room plants.

The upstairs bay window.

This morning when I went down to the barn, it was raining but the sunrise was a strange and beautiful pink glow. It was a fitting farewell sunrise for September. We’re home from church now. The rain has stopped for the moment and the sun is trying to peek through the clouds, but it’s still chilly. I have the electric heater going beside me. Hannah is begging me to start a fire in the wood stove. Stacey even mentioned lighting the pilot on the furnace – a real shocker since she never thinks of doing that this early in the year. Tomorrow is the first of October. October can be one of the finest months of the year here. It can also be one of the most disappointing. It all depends on the weather, and the weather is never dependable. The hills are starting to show more color. We shall see what happens.

Sunrise on the last day of September.