Autumn is my favourite season - you just can't beat the sights and sounds and smells of this season. I know, I know, it's not technically fall yet; people constantly remind me that the first day of fall doesn't happen until the third week in September, but they're only fooling themselves - summer is fading fast.
The crops are in all different stages of ripeness. We finished harvesting our fall rye yesterday and Glen spent today out cutting 80 acres of barley and then went on to start a field of oats. With the heat we had today it won't be long before we'll be combining the barley. Everything will be ready at the same time from then on.
Glen tried an experiment this spring. He's got about 200 acres that he sowed with two different kinds of seed. On about 120 acres he sowed fall rye with the cover crop of oats so that when the oats were harvested the rye, which would still be green, could provide fall grazing for the cattle. As he cuts the oats he is quite pleased with the successful growth of the rye underneath. It will need a good rain to really do well, but it's more to eat than the cows would have had with just the oats stubble. On the remaining 80 acres he planted perennial grass and alphalfa - next year's hay field. This, too, has done well. I can see this fall is going to involve a lot of stringing fence wire, and with the last of our kids leaving home in two weeks time, it also looks like I'm about to enter into an outdoor fitness program/ marriage compatibility test. We haven't really worked together since the kids were old enough to help - this could be interesting.
Or, maybe he's mellowed over the years - it was just him and me today, and it was kind fo nice. He hauled in the last truckloads of rye and went off to swath barley. I had planned to do house cleaning all day to get ready for company on the long weekend. My plans were modified a bit when I discovered that one of our deepfreezes in the basement had given up the ghost a day or two ago. Thank goodness I caught it when I did or we would have lost everything in it. As it was, a good portion of the meat was not thawed out yet and could be saved, but all the baking, vegetables, and stuff like frozen pizzas were off to the garbage before they started to stink.
My day was busy, but I still had time to go out to the field with lunch, and fresh cookies and coffee later in the day. We have neighbours going full bore; their trucks roaring past our place all day long - all night too, if the weather allows it. There was a time that we farmed like that too; with every year that goes by we're more glad we don't run in that rat race anymore.
My house smells like apple pie - made with fruit fresh from the tree. The seed pods on the carraganna are popping in the August heat. Suppers are daily feasts of corn-on-the-cob, new potatoes, and fresh garden cucumbers. And when the breeze is from the east, the scent of this year's hay crop fills the yard. I enjoy all the seasons, but I love autumn the best.
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