Change is in the air

The summer is passing and there is change in the air. As much as I miss the warm days and the short nights of summer, I do cherish the changes of the seasons. Oh I'll be complaining along with everyone else when the weather turns cold and dreary, but the complaints are only superficial. The cold makes farm chores harder. The dark does too. But when I look down deep, down to the core of my being, I love the change. How can one appreciate the bounty of summer if one never knows the barrenness of winter? And there is beauty to be had in both.

As different as summer is from fall is from winter is from spring, the transition is almost imperceptible until one day you wake up and there it is. One day you are basking in the warm sunshine and the next you are putting on a sweatshirt and a hat to head outdoors. But it's not like someone just went and threw on a switch, the change has been happening every day. The dandelions quit blooming long ago. The goldenrod has become the most numerous flower in the meadow across the road from our house. The swallows have abandoned their nests.  The adults and their young fledglings swoop and dive as they follow the lawnmower around the yard as the mower kicks up bugs into the air for the eager swallows to catch and eat. The blackbirds sit in large flocks in the trees. They were not there a month ago, but they are now.

The chickens are caught up in the change too.  The 2 dozen eggs a day I was collecting in spring, became a dozen and a half in summer and now just a dozen or so eggs are laid each day.  A few of the hens have started their annual molt.  During the molt, the chickens will lose their old feathers and will grow new ones.  Although most chickens will just take on a slight scruffy appearance, a few will lose so many feathers at once that you can actually see the quills of the new feathers as the come up through the skin.  Most of the time I only know they are molting because of the piles of feathers that show up in the yard and the coop. They quit laying eggs during this time as their bodies divert energy from egg laying to growing feathers.  It is a time of reproductive rest that all birds need to do every year.

The fields are changing too.  Mike and Bill have been busy mowing the meadows and the lanes around the farm.  I usually try to keep up with at least mowing the paths in the summer, but this job got away from me this year.  But now that the lanes are mowed again, I was able to take a drive back to the woods yesterday.  The field corn is starting to brown and the ears are just starting to tip a little bit as the corn matures and dries out.  Mike mowed the old patches of sweet corn.  There is only one patch still standing.  The tomato plants are heavy and leaning over full of tomatoes.  The earliest planted cucumber plants have died.  The earliest planted broccoli is fully in bloom with lots of yellow flowers. 

I too am immersed in the change.  The cool air makes the kitchen a welcome place once again and there are the smells of freshly baked oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and peach cobbler drifting through the house.  Bread baking can surely not be far behind.  As well as the smell of a pot of stew or chili simmering in the crock pot all day long.

The woods are calling me too.  Last night, I took the first walk through the woods since May.  These walks will become more and more frequent as the fall season rolls along.  The weather is cool enough now that the dogs can join me on some of my walks.  Early hunting seasons have begun and with them another chance to stock the freezer with fresh, healthy meat from animals who do not eat antibiotics and do not live in tight confined quarters.  There is so much I love about fall.  I feel truly blessed to live on this farm and all it offers.