September Morn

Yes, September is here for sure.

 You can see it in the sky each morning...

as the sun dramatically returns to us from the other side of the world.

With September comes a smell in the air that is hard to describe.

It is here every year...

a warm fragrance of baked peaches, apple cider and new mown grass, 

with a little ylang ylang thrown in for good measure...

put those  fragrances together and you can imagine what I am smelling.

I only wish we could do a scratch and sniff blog post so that I could share it with you.

The odor is intoxicating... especially for me.

(I am one of those super-smellers, gifted with an overactive olfactory sense...

sort of like a dog's.)

If any of you have any idea what it is I am smelling, please enlighten me!

I spent yesterday morning cleaning and slicing almost a bushel of organic peaches.

I froze them in peach-pie-sized batches to bake with this winter.

With peaches put away, it was time to pick pears.

A tree full of sweet, crunchy red pears awaited me at our elderly neighbor's house.

He had told me to help myself...

and that's just what I did!

Then I moved on to our own little pear tree that held about 7 green pears.

Ummm, make that six.

Mmmmmm...nothing like fresh pears for a snack...

and perhaps a pear tart this weekend.

With fruit chores out of the way, it was time to get out and do a bit of mowing.

Down through the fence row....

all the while being driven crazy trying to name the sweet fragrance being carried on the breeze.

I sniffed flowers as I passed them...none of them seemed to be emitting the strange smell.

I stopped in to visit the fainting goats.

My presence sent Andy running across the field...stiff legged.

If I had been a stranger, he would surely have stiffened up enough to drop over (faint).

The chickens are always hanging out by the goats' water buckets,

like children on the pool apron during an adult swim.

Fred goes for a drink and sends them scattering.

It's hard to believe it's been almost 6 months since Annie came to live at the farm.

She has turned into the perfect farm dog...

excellent hunter, yet respectful of the farm animals

(ok, I do catch her from time to time chasing a barn cat).

When she arrived she was tiny and timid, tale-between-her-legs, scared of everything.

Now she has grown and is practically fearless...carrying her tail looped high over her back.

I love rescue stories with happy endings...and this is surely one of them!