Fall is Coming!

I've been watching the hay fields all summer. Well, not exactly all summer, but ever since they mowed the fields and rolled the hay into giant rolls. I've been fascinated with them all season; they're like large, brown, moist rolls of Shredded Wheat. They've lain haphazardly in the field until this week, when they were moved into neat rows, waiting for the fork to lift them into the hay wagons. I'll be sad to see them go. I've watched them in the early morning light and the setting sun, and at all hours of the day; they've become like old friends to me, familiar, with no need to speak.

Likewise, I've been fascinated with the corn field behind my house. The tiny shoots emerged from the groundin the spring, seemingly too fragile to sustain themselves, but in time grew to over seven feet high! I could watch the growth progress hourly in the early days, and now they spent their time maturing the ears of corn, the tassles turning ever more golden brown. The corn will be used for sileage for the dairy cows next door. As a matter of fact, the tractor made it's first pass yesterday, cutting the stalks at the ground, feeding the entire plant through the shredder and throwing the ground up bits of those magnificent plants into the trailer behind. Even as I write this, the tractor winds its way up and down the rows, leaving bare earth in its path.

The grapes have ripened, almost ready to pick. I can smell the heady sweet aroma in the air, even though the nearest vineyard is several hundred yards away, beyond the corn field, past the trees along the meandering creek. I have no real use for the Concord grapes that grow here. I don't jelly or can them. I don't make the syrupy sweet wine that comes from Concords. I just love the smell of them. Soon I'll pick a few bunches, bring them into the house, and let them release their potent scent to fill the house.