A New Day

I'm inside looking out.  We designed the house so that no matter where you were in the house you were always looking out.  It looks like fall, which incidentally literally started about 20 minutes ago.  It's hard to know why it looks like fall, trees are green, the sun is shining, and I can't feel the temperature.  Probably nothing about this moment says fall, maybe it's what's happened in the past several days and what's happening among people.

It's rained for about five days now, a bit over three inches in that time.  The university is buzzing with activity as the first year students are coming to campus for their first taste of higher education.  The church has started its fall schedule and the evening seem cooler and dark earlier.  The sense of fall may be completely internal and not from outside.

It's also time for harvest.  We picked and canned a dozen or so quarts of tomatoes from the garden yesterday.  There may be a few later but for the most part they're done.  We picked the last beans and as well as the last solo cucumber.  A couple nice sized onions were also brought for use of the next several days.  A bowlful of raspberry are a daily routine this past week which aren't enough to preserve but just perfect with ice cream and chocolate syrup or on the top of a bow of cereal.  They go great in a smoothie as well.

I haven't seen as much activity from the humming birds lately.  Perhaps some have found their own homes.  As Gail looked out the window yesterday she said "The young ones always look so cute."  I thought first she was talking about the humming birds but indeed she was referring to the family of tuffed grouse that were tiptoeing through the flower bed in front of the house.  She could have been referring to the flock of turkeys who came through as a few hens this spring and now number about a dozen with the young'uns.

While my view from behind the computer denies me the chance to see the yellow leaves I know that they're out there.  I saw them through another window earlier.  Don't get too excited, it's not fall color time yet, there only were about a handful.

We did start the wood fire stove in the house a couple times during the rainy evenings these last couple days.  The temperature and dampness causes the body to crave the cozy warmth of a wood fire.

Is it really fall?  The forecast calls for another week of warming days starting in the 60's and moving up to the 80's next week.  Fall or not, that will be great.