A Chill in the Breeze

I know that officially I cannot declare that fall is here for a couple of more days, but unofficially . . . the season known as fall has arrived at the O'Hara Corner Farm. Today it is overcast and blustery, the yellow leaves of the walnut trees are being scattered around the yard, and I feel inclined to wear my jacket to go out and pick tomatoes this afternoon. This amuses me a wee bit, as usually I don't associate wearing a jacket with tomato picking, but hey it is only 65 degrees F.

Sometime in August, picking and preserving became a priority over weeding, and so now we end up with a garden area looking like this:

Which is definitely not pretty, and a little depressing when compared with the clean neat rows of early June. But soon, all the stakes, posts, and trellises will be pulled out, the tall weeds will succumb to the weed whackers, and all will be mowed flat by the mower. Then we dig up the heap that is the compost pile, spread it on top of the whole thing, and call it done until next spring's tilling. I find as the years go by, we seem to take more and more pleasure in the process of each season, and delight in the blessings that each of them bring.

Which brings me to the joys that still abound for us this month:

Late blooming clematis . . . can't you just smell it!

Our new dairy beef steers T-Bone (in the lean-to), and Hamburger:

Growing, thriving meat turkeys:

Our new outdoor kitty Henry, who adopted us a couple of weeks ago. He is incredibly friendly, but not terribly photogenic :)

And having got to spend a very lovely week in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan a few weeks ago:

As you can see from below, its been a dry late summer. Most of our grass is dry and brown, except for the spot in the yard where the garden hose leaks :)