A Changing Season

The day has been just beautiful...Heck the week has been beautiful thus far.  While our days continue unpleasantly hot (it was 100F Monday afternoon on my front porch) the mornings have been blissfully nice.  This morning the temperature was a mere 69F!  I was so pleased, that after feeding the animals, I rushed indoors to throw open all the windows.  It was lovely to have that fresh air in the house.  If only the breeze we had yesterday had been blowing today...Then the house might have been well aired for Autumn months ahead. 

I spied this blooming roadside three weeks ago and made a special stop to photograph it this past Saturday.  Isn't it just beautiful?  I hear often enough from people that golden rod is an allergen for them.  I beg to differ.  Nearly all allergies this time of year are ragweed which blooms at the same time as golden rod.  Golden rod is more noticeable and hence more people believe that is the allergen.   

But I digress.  I have been watching carefully and have seen more and more golden rod blooming.  Yesterday when it was so nice, I came home down the Old River Road and just since my morning trip up it there was  more golden rod blooming.  I suppose it liked that warm sun and gentle breeze as much as I did.

I am very drowsy at the moment.  If I am very careful and very quiet, do you suppose I might sneak up on a nap?  I could use one.  I was geared to sleeping late this morning but we got a very early morning text, somewhere around 5am from Samuel asking John to tell me he'd be by today.  And he arrived at 5:45!  No, I hadn't planned to get up that early, not at all.  But Samuel thought today started John's work week and came especially early so he could see him.  Well, my Barrista boy made us coffee which was enjoyed.  It was however the decaf container he chose to make coffee from and I made sure to make a second pot of the high powered stuff to keep me going, lol.

He had just come off his last shift in billing at the insurance company where he's employed.  I suppose he was feeling a bit celebratory and since he has a few days off between now and next week when he starts training for his new job, he came to talk. 

I mixed up a batch of waffle batter using the buttermilk that needed to be refreshed and put a pan of turkey bacon in the oven.  We opened the new bottle of real maple syrup, too.  It was a pretty good breakfast with tender golden brown waffles.  It sort of made up for the leathery turkey bacon.  My fault.  I overcooked it because it isn't my usual brand and I couldn't tell that it was done. 

I went out on the porch after breakfast to feed the dogs, who hadn't shown up for supper at all last night.  Trudy wasn't really in the mood to eat this morning either.  Instead she was in the mood to growl at the cat for glancing at her or to grouse at Maddie for coming out from behind my chair where she normally eats.  When Maddie went out to the patio and lay down, Trudy looked out and saw Maddie watching her and she got all alpha doggy and snarled and growled to show Maddie who was boss.  After about fifteen minutes of that I picked up Trudy's pan and put the food away.  She was so funny, made a whimper that sounded like "Mo-om!" which tickled me but didn't earn her the food pan back.  I figure if she'd been really hungry she'd have eaten and not been showing off.

I am not in the least worried that any of my animals are going hungry.  The dogs are in the habit of visiting my cousin and my brother's places each day and they aren't above eating a bite of cow feed or horse feed or a freshly run down rabbit. 

I generally take my Bible out to the porch with me in the mornings.  It's such a nice quiet place to read, as a rule, unless Trudy is in her snarky mood.  This morning Samuel came outdoors and started pulling up iron weed and small persimmon trees that had taken root in the front flower beds.  He soon had those areas looking nice once more and went off with the clippers to trim branches.   I'm afraid that between Trudy and Samuel I was distracted from my Bible study.  I shall read it all over again tomorrow morning and pretend it's all new, lol.

Yesterday morning when I fed the animals the breeze was blowing and the sun was slanting all golden through the trees.  I'd done my Bible study then and had a rather good morning of it.  For one thing there was a word picture formed by my reading in Job.  My Bible basically put it like this.  "I take up the earth each morning at first light and shake it by the corners to scatter the wicked."  I'm strictly paraphrasing mind you, but isn't that just a wonderful bit of G-dly housekeeping?  It made me think of how each morning when I go to make the bed, I fluff the pillows and snap the top sheet up and billow it a bit and then pull the sheet down all neat and unwrinkled over the bed.  I got curious about the passage and went to my Contemporary English Bible and that one said "take up the morning and shake the night away like dust from a rug." 

And then I was mulling over an old heartache that has had some new bruising of late.  I was standing looking out over the yard and the trees and the glory of the day and talking out loud to G-d which is the luxury one has in living in the middle of nowhere.  As I talked over the hurts, I was reminded of a conversation many years ago in which generational curses were discussed.  Curious for the first time, I counted backwards through the generations on both sides of my family to the history I knew about two different situations that have been very divisive for my family.  I am a third generation member on one side and fourth on the other. 

Not too long ago I read that a family might be cursed for four generations.  Which meant that I was at the end of the line for at least one of those woes and then I remembered an even more wonderful thing about that same bit of verse.  "I will bless you and your family unto the thousandth generation."  How much greater is G-d in His goodness than we can imagine?  I pray I might be the beginning of the blessing generations for my children and grandchildren and theirs to come after.

Sunday evening on the porch (getting an idea of a theme in this post?  Perhaps I ought to retitle it "On the Front Porch, lol), as I fed the animals it began to rain.  It was so nice to sit there in the shelter of the porch.  The rain came out of the west and so it only slightly misted over me now and then.  The cat's perch where she eats however got a little bit wet.  She was having none of that.  So she came to shelter on the porch behind my chair,

 

while Maddie felt more comfortable UNDER my chair.

The reason Maddie was under my chair was that the wind made her nervous.  It was a bit brisk, evidenced by the sideways slant of the leaves on the Faith Tree.  Trudy nor I felt too concerned over the weather but the other two are just a scaredy cat and a scaredy dog.

I did notice the leaves were blowing off the Faith tree onto the lawn, just bits of yellow in the photo above.  However those yellow leaves are just a few of the changing leaves on the place.  Look at the Sweet Gum which is even more full of yellow stars today than it was Sunday (photo from Sunday)

In fact, I noticed there is a carpet of gold under the Sweet Gum at noon today.

And the persimmon trees have started changing too.

In the photo here they just look brown but a larger close-up would reveal the colors in each leaf. 

Despite the heat and the humidity most days, the turn of seasons is here and likely going to be every bit as early as Katie told me it would be.  There have been several years I sought in vain for a bit of a colored leaf or a frond of blooming golden rod until well into October.  This year is to be quite different.  Another sign?  The cold, cold water coming out of our well.  This morning when I was running water to do dishes, had just showered and then ran water to fill water bottles, the water was icy cold, because you see, our tank had emptied and refilled.  When the water is that cold coming out of the tank it is a sure sign that a seasonal change has already occurred.  Last year it was tepid water until mid-October.

And if it seems I am trying a bit hard to be convincing of a seasonal change, I probably am, lol.  Oh the signs are all there all right, it's just that I want to hurry it on now we're so nearly at the end of summer anyway.  Fall coming a little early won't bother me at all, at all.  No Sirree!  I do love that season of the year best of them every one.

Have you all seen the Autumn Cottage magazine out on the magazine racks?  It's from Hoffman Media and it is GORGEOUS.  Loads and loads of photographs and little writing to mar the pages and it is all published on a wonderful glossy weighted paper. I admit it is a bit pricey at $9.99 but I think it is well worth buying.  And considering I recently purchased an issue of Romantic Country for $7.99...well I think Autumn Cottage is well worth every penny, whereas I was disappointed enough in RC to tell myself to save my money to spend on a good vintage magazine next time. 

They have a forthcoming issue called The Christmas Cottage!  I will most certainly be looking for that one, too.

I added a bevy of new recipes to my September file.  I mean, I really do, to sit down and work out a menu for the Fall quarter.  I have to say that I am consistent in what I buy.  I generally shop seasonally, both for meats and produce.  And since I am well aware of what is on sale this time of year I can plan ahead and make out menus.  Then I can incorporate the seasonal recipes I love, and add a few new ones to try and hopefully always have a meal option when I'm totally stumped for inspiration.

Well gracious me! I've sat and chatted for a bit over two hours now and there are things I really ought to be doing. I've a power point for worship service this weekend to do, and it shall soon be supper time. Not too sure what that meal might be. I made Chili Lime Chicken Tacos for lunch and Pineapple Salads and Texas Sheet cake for dessert. My but it was a good meal!   The tacos were a made up as I went recipe, based upon a recipe title I glimpsed in a magazine somewhere recently.  I sliced onions, green bell peppers and chicken breast.  Then I cooked the peppers and onions.  I cooked the chicken until just white, added cumin, minced garlic and a dash of chili powder and lime zest, and juice of 1/2 lime. 

I made my own tacos from corn tortillas.  We topped the tacos with grated cheese and salsa.  They were awesome good.

Now really I should get off this computer, my husband is ready for his supper and I haven't much of an idea what we might have at the moment!