It's definitely fall now after a lovely stretch of classic end of summer weather: warm golden days, mostly blue skies (modulo wildfire smoke haze), and cool clear nights filled with insect song through open windows. Clouds finally showed up on the 18th, framing but not eclipsing the partly-eclipsed moon, a sign of changes ahead.

As the weeks went on more and more trees showed first colors before the earlier and earlier sunsets. I enjoyed late-season flowers (the neighborhood hydrangeas were amazing), did a lot of produce processing (especially tomatoes and beans), and road-tripped seasonal touchstones on the Cod and in Maine.

It was a good year for local produce. After none at all in 2023 Barker's had their delicious peaches through last week and should have corn and tomatoes through the end of the month. My garden is mostly done and soon it'll be time for cleaning up and planting garlic.

The bird feeders remain popular but are emptying more slowly now that most of the hatch year birds have dispersed. An itinerant red-breasted nuthatch has joined its white-breasted cousins and other residents (mostly finches and chickadees) at the trough. I'm no longer seeing mourning dove families or flickers in the yard or hearing as many insects. Instead there are occasional fall peepers and barred owls through mostly-shut windows.

Came home Saturday night from the Common Ground Country Fair to cold rain and a layer of fallen leaves in the yard. It's a bit chilly in the mornings so I've swapped capris for sweats and am wearing house slippers again. Soon it'll be soup and socks and wood-stove weather, and I'm feeling almost ready for all of those as the wheel of the year turns inward.