240926 september

September 22, 2024

I like September, probably because it is my birth month, but also the leftover feeling from when it marked the beginning of a new school year, pristine new notebooks and pencils, anticipation. I sit on the porch with my coffee every morning and watch the sunrise. Sometimes the clouds lie in the valley looking as if the sea has risen to flood the world. The fog creeps along the ridge so opaque.

 

Some mornings there are deer at the apple trees, but this morning a coyote visited and enjoyed the apples. He took one a little way from the tree and lay down to munch it, then came back for another. He was the fattest coyote I have ever seen. They are usually thin and spare. I sometimes hear them howling and yipping at night, but then Blackie, our neighbour dog, barks on the hill and they go quiet. 

The trees suddenly began turning this week. We are up before the sun now and see it break over the hills. The asters are one of the few wildflowers bringing colour, pale purple, to the meadow. There is also a yellow dandelion-like one in flower now, the autumn hawkbit, the plant app says, but the goldenrod has gone to seed. Butter-and-eggs is one of the last blossoms of the season, but they are uncommon on our hill. Perhaps it is too high up. They are plentiful in Etobicoke at this time of year. But this morning was the first time I felt autumn; on the trails it came to me, some sense, I don't know what exactly, whether it was the brambles bare of leaf and fruit, or the gentle coolness of the air. I went for a long walk to the second turn of the trails and back across the top path to our meadow and down. 

Here are the asters, so pale that the colour doesn't show in this picture. They only grow at the borders of our yard, so I suspect they are imported and didn't grow wild in the before time.

Colonies of mushrooms crowd around the bases of trees. They seem so sentient and purposeful, a community.

The king tree, (or perhaps a mother tree!) seemed old and failing last year, but looks strong and protective this summer.

*****

Although we have had so much rain this year, it is more than two weeks since we last had any and the streams on the hill are mostly dry; but at last we are getting rain. I love to be able to sit outside under cover of the porch to see the rain. Rocky does not like rain, and will not go out in it, unless he has to accompany me. He doesn't even like to get his feet wet and I am sure he has never been swimming in his life.

We have recently found out that Rocky is actually sixteen years old! We thought he was eleven.

We had a doctor's appointment in Toronto for the beginning of October, but I persuaded K to postpone it until December when we will be in Toronto for a few weeks. So now I am able to relax and enjoy a few weeks of being settled here. We have been here so little this year and never for more than three or four weeks. It feels good to let myself be immersed in this place. 

*****

September 26

Have had an inch and a half of rain in the last two days. The hill streams are still not running much; I think the land must have soaked up a lot of it. Now, late in the day, the sun is coming out, and Rocky and I got a short walk in. The wind dropped in the night and it is warmer now. Looking forward to a good weekend. Rain is having a birthday party for Fox - he turned three this month. 

Fox and I play together when he is here. We play chase, and hide-and-seek; he hides in the same place over and over! This day we were playing with playdough and after we had cut out every shape with the cookie cutters, I made him some claws which turned out very well. 

*****

September moon: 

Keep well. Thank you for visiting.

Mumma Yaga