Fall

                  Today is the first day of fall. That used to mean football and apple orchards (and apple orchard doughnuts!). Then it mostly meant harvest. Now there are so many signs of autumn and the changing of the seasons in my life. The chickens have started to lay fewer eggs and they go back to the coop to roost much earlier in the evening. The yellow star thistle is almost bloomed out and my bees are not as noticeable buzzing around during the day. The maple leaves are turning an east coast yellow and orange. My grapes are ripening (very slowly this year, but they are indeed ripening). We have been harvesting bushels of apples (and will gather more this weekend from my folks' place). We are still enjoying local tomatoes but are conscious of the eminent end of the season. The geese from the irrigation ponds have flown away. The leaves are long gone from the buckeyes. The figs are teasing us - not quite ready yet. We are thinking about getting our wood pile ready for cozy fires at home. Every morning when I start work at 6:30 it is a little bit darker and harder to get moving. Grape trucks are moving through the valley. Straw bales (to protect our soil from the approaching rains) are stocked at the ag supply stores. The young, foreign winery interns have arrived and wander the aisles of the grocery store and hang out in front of the one bar in town. The September moon (always one that has an effect on me) is almost full tonight and beautiful hanging over the pond below our house. The frogs are singing, welcoming the cooler days and the promise of rain. Tonight I smelled harvest for the first time this year. Every year along the main stretch of the valley the smell of ripening, fermenting (....and composting) grapes fills tourists and locals noses alike.

To a happy fall! I wish everyone a healthy and productive harvest this year - no matter what the earth may be giving you.
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