September

The last fields of hay have been cut and sit bundled in tiny little rolls all up and down the valley. Tobacco has been cut and hung to dry. They'll be cutting silage soon, and then hunkering down and putting up with the mud. Not much to do, once it gets cold, but kill hogs and hunt bear. I've got a couple of tomatoes left on the vines, but that's about it. We'll be cutting cute baby squash right up until frost, I hope, but mostly we're waiting for the collard greens to grow.
I've got a few boxes of winter squash in, and the chestnuts are beginning to drop. Non-perishable autumn crops that can sit in a box and be brought to market over and over again. We're putting everything to rest.
Rye has been spread in the front and in the upper fields. I'll disk in the last pathetic little planting of buckwheat in the middle field pretty soon, and lay some rye down over it. I am in no way motivated to chop firewood.
Equinox is nearly upon us. The leaves are already starting to turn way up on Doggett, but we've got a little while, at least, until the tourists descend upon us. These days we've mostly just the bikers to deal with; they rocket up and down the road with the noise of a 747 or an F-16 or perhaps a rocket propelled greande. Whatever the proper analogy, there's a special place in hell for people who shamelessly make a disproportionate amount of noise in the middle of all this idyllic pastoralism, and it's not pretty. I don't know exactly what it looks like, no one does, and I can't bring myself to visualize it just now. You've been given reason, which distinguishes bad and good. Dante said that.
He also said that time goes away and man doesn't notice it.
(You didn't have to say people in 14th Century Italy.)
I don't know if I notice it or not. I've been feeling fairly well in tune with things this year - the wildflowers have given me some kind of a calender to mark the motion of the summer - daffodil to mayapple to daisy to queen anne's lace to goldenrod. Or, in the garden, bolting arugula to summer squash to green beans to tomatoes to, well, galansoga.
There won't be any new flowers from here on in. The nights will be longer than the days by the end of the week. The leaves will turn and drop soon. I kind of like it. Frost will be on the pumpkin and the smell of silage will be in the air. I want to take I* to the Smokies and walk down paths and listen to the sound of the leaves under our feet.