Autumn is a-cumin' in

Saturday evening we headed for town to help celebrate our little town on the prairie's 100th birthday. Not a great age compared to many, even in eastern Canada, but quite an achievement and a thrill for the kids especially to be a part of the occasion. There was a big dance followed by fireworks, then more dancing, and oodles of food throughout. And a chance to remember the pioneers who started it all with their hard work, and those who carry on. To whom we all say a well-deserved thank you.

Speaking of thank yous, Tom arrived home on Friday with a case of very, very ripe peaches. I've come to be very wary of this sort of gift when I'm least prepared and usually up to my armpits in some other garden preserving activity, and I've told Tom in previous years on various occasions that yes, dear, I will buy and can cases of peaches and pears -- Davy calls them "hot sugared fruit" -- but on my own schedule, dear, since that I had planned to deal this weekend with the last of the green beans, rhubarb, and a few other housekeeping projects. The peaches were well on the way to beyond ripe, so I had to do something fast. And quick and easy, to, which meant one cobbler, one pie, and peeling, chunking, and sugaring the rest for pie filling.

The leaves on the Virginia creeper have turned bright red already, harvest is in full gear in the fields around us, geese are honking and ducks gather on the dugouts and sloughs and the hunters from the U.S. are starting to circle too, our neighbor's famous end-of-summer "corn supper" is next week, and though it's still unusually warm for this time of year (we watched the fireworks at 10:30 pm in light shirts), the light definitely looks like autumn. I'll miss the carefree summer weather and schedule, my garden especially -- I'm enjoying great big blowzy bouquets right now, zinnias, cosmos, hollyhocks, cornflowers -- but there's something exciting about the change in seasons, especially this next season. Autumn usually means a withering and a decline, but as someone who always loved school (Tom and I decided to homeschool Laura in part because we wanted her to love school and learning as much as we had), this time of year to me signifies not only an ending but also a beginning, marked by kraft-paper covered books, new knee socks and art supplies, the excitement of new friends and activities. Now that the days are dramatically shorter -- it's getting dark before nine now -- even the kids are starting to show a bit of curiosity and interest in our new schedule, not as freeform and out-of-doors as it's been. Where and when will the 4H meetings be held? What will the new piano and voice teachers be like? What new books will be using? It's all part of the new adventure!