Can you feel the year changing?

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Tylluan
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Can you feel the year changing?

Post by Tylluan »

Hi all

Does anyone else LOVE this time of year? We are just out of Summer and in that liminal space that lingers between Summer and Autumn. It's the transitional period as Summer tails off and starts to cool down, the plants slow down production and the days get progressively shorter. The leaves on the Horse Chestnut tree, are the first to change this year. They are slowly changing colour and it won't be long until we are crunching through the leaves.

I know not everyone works with the Wheel of the Year but when you work with the land you get such a tangible feeling, that its hard not to. I have a small patch of land that I rent. I grow my own fruit, vegetables and herbs. I've noticed that my dear plants are starting to slow the harvest down now. They have done me proud and we've had endless Tomatoes, Courgettes, French Beans, Potatoes, garlic and onions. There are pumpkins to come and all the Winter Squashes. Its been a tough year though too thanks to Climate change. The long cold spring meant everything was late, then the really hot summer scorched everything and we were running out of water.

Anyway I'm going off topic....so back to the question.....Can you feel the year changing where you are?
My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring. And carried aloft on the wings of the breeze. For above and around me the wild wind is roaring. Arousing to rapture the earth and the seas.
beemerphill
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Re: Can you feel the year changing?

Post by beemerphill »

I too love this time of year. The harvest is coming in, and fall is just around the corner. I am looking forward to the warm afternoons and cool nights. When your body is in tune with the earth and the seasons it makes everything else in your life easier to understand and enjoy. I am happy that you had a good crop. When the results of your labor and the earth's bounty are in your hands, and on your table, it is easy to see how we are all part of something much greater than ourselves.
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missbelladonna
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Re: Can you feel the year changing?

Post by missbelladonna »

I totally know what you mean. The air just feels so different. I feel something changing inside of me too (maybe it's just excitement because I REALLY love fall and spring). I'm looking forward to feeling that autumn breeze and enjoying my tea outside.
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SpiritTalker
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Re: Can you feel the year changing?

Post by SpiritTalker »

Autumn has always been my favorite season. The scents, the changes in weather & brilliant foliage colors are great. I disliked returning to the drudgery of school routine after total freedom from schedules of summer. I live in a fruit-belt & love the scents carried on the breeze in fruit harvest season. I guess i live by my stomach.
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Re: Can you feel the year changing?

Post by crescent »

Yes, I can feel that the change is beginning, and try to take full advantage of the special energy. Most of the farm work is done, and hay stored in the barn for the year. The horses are growing thicker coats per shorter days, even if the high temperatures can still soar. The sounds of crickets are a nightly nostalgic presence, just as the frogs remind me of spring. The rainy season will arrive, and after awhile will feel relentless, but in the beginning there is a washing of the earth and quenched thirst that will be relished.
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Firebird
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Re: Can you feel the year changing?

Post by Firebird »

Yes! I love the shift from fire to water. We were just talking about this and how it feels similar to being annealed like metal. We've been super heated to pliable in the summer of South and now we get to cool off slowly in the autumnal West, as we cool gaining strength by the molecules realigning. I think I love the Fall as much as Spring, can't really decide. As a kid I liked this time of year because it was back to school, the smell of the air was just different. Energizing. Also, cooking the comfort foods begin, and Halloween is just around the corner (if you can find a corner on a circle! LoL) We here in So.Cal will truly be cooling off a bit later, it can be pretty hot here as far out as Nov 22, but towards the end of October the shift is much more apparent, we may get a few trees to start turning around then. Spiced Latte anyone???
That spiced chutney you made, Tylluan, sounds like it is perfect for this time of year. You will have bunches of stuff to make from your garden! yeah!
BB, Firebird
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Juniper
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Re: Can you feel the year changing?

Post by Juniper »

Yes I love the change coming! The sights, smells,sounds all of it. I love wearing a jacket in the morning, t-shirt in the afternoon and jacket again in the evening. The ginourmous spiders that make the ten foot webs that you walk thru! It's the last hoorah before the big sleep, all the trees trying to outdo one another. And the bloodsucking mosquitos,ticks and chiggers(I think they are reincarnated politicians) disappear!! The shadows change and the days get shorter. It's definitely my favorite time of year!
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Tylluan
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Re: Can you feel the year changing?

Post by Tylluan »

I LOVE all of your responses. It just adds to it when other people appreciate the things you do and see the beauty in it. I noticed recently that the screaming swifts have gone already. They zoom over the house and garden screeching at each other whilst catching insects and it yells SUMMER. You can tell if we are in a high pressure or low pressure weather system by the height that they fly at because that's where the insects have gone. They've been replaced by Bats and a Tawny Owl. The owl pair Ke-wit and Wooo at each other all night.

I love seeing the harvests this time of year and I always make a wish on the lorries stacked with Straw Bales. They drive down the motorway and bits of straw break off and float so its like driving through a straw storm. Around here we also have Apple day. Its now that the apples are falling from the trees and are either sold to eat, or are turned into Cider, apple juice or puddings. We have an event celebrating all the different kinds of apples you can get. Its like the end of the growing year. Potato Day back in February is the start of the growing year.

Firebirdflys you are so right that the chutney is perfect for Autumn. I'm trying to stop myself eating it haha. I've made 19 jars of it and I've given 5 away already.

My current favourite make at the moment is Courgette and Lemon cake. Its a brilliant way of using up a glut of courgettes. They have grown really well this year, but I don't really like eating them as they are. So cake is perfect haha. I need to make two more tonight, and I'm adding walnuts this time.

Its funny how food does ring in the seasons. Here we have something called Parkin. Its a really dense Gingerbread made with oats and flour. It needs time to settle and let the flavours soak in so we make it 2 weeks before bonfire night. When bonfire night arrives the Parkin is sticky and sweet and the smell of ginger and cinnamon can warm anyone. Autumn is just the perfect time for being outside still, but all wrapped up and with good hot food.

I do love the other Seasons too, but Autumn is where my heart lives :)
My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring. And carried aloft on the wings of the breeze. For above and around me the wild wind is roaring. Arousing to rapture the earth and the seas.
beemerphill
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Re: Can you feel the year changing?

Post by beemerphill »

Tylluan, You are certainly eating well. Reading about all the wonderful food is making me hungry!
You are making Courgette and Lemon cake. My wife makes a cake with Zucchini and Chocolate. It is not only tasty, it will last for a few days while staying moist. I had to look up the Parkin cake. It sounds delicious. And it is a good time for your Apple day. The fall apples are much better than the summer apples. It seems as if it takes a little touch of frost to bring out the sweetness of an apple.
Enjoying the bounty of the Earth seems like a great way to celebrate the Wheel of the Year.
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Tylluan
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Re: Can you feel the year changing?

Post by Tylluan »

beemerphill wrote:Tylluan, You are certainly eating well
A little too well at the moment haha. I'm back on a diet now trying to shift some weight before our friends wedding in October.

Sadly I am allergic to chocolate. Its gives me migraines. But the cake sounds delicious. I do find that the vegetable cakes last for a good long time and stay moist.

Before I started working my own bit of land I thought I was in tune with the year. But when you start growing by it you realise that there's so much more. I spend most of my spare time outside and you can't help but notice it changing. I said previously about the Swifts. They left a few weeks ago, and like clockwork the geese arrived this week. The hedgerows are starting to swell with berries, and rosehips too. All my crops are slowing down.

Today being the 1st September means I can start using my 'Its Pumpkin Spice and everything nice Season' mug smiley_dance
My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring. And carried aloft on the wings of the breeze. For above and around me the wild wind is roaring. Arousing to rapture the earth and the seas.
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Firebird
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Re: Can you feel the year changing?

Post by Firebird »

LoL :lol: yeah to the Pumpkin spice!!! I t really does usher in the season doesn't it?

That's interesting that your geese are already arriving. Ours won't show up until about early or mid November. I'll have to make a note of when the do arrive. It's really sad to see the decline though. I remember when V formation after V formation of at least 25 geese or more going by several times in the day, honking all the way ::coolglasses::
Now you're lucky to see 3 or 4 flying together. And the field they would hang out in had hundreds of birds, now maybe 40 or 50 in this space.

I'll be happy for the cool down though, it is a comfort.
BB, Firebird
“There are things known and things unknown and in between are the Doors.”
― Jim Morrison
“All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”
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blue_moon
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Re: Can you feel the year changing?

Post by blue_moon »

Yes Tylluan, i love this time as well! I Love that it stays dark longer in the morning, the way the sun and the wind feel.
BB

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Juniper
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Re: Can you feel the year changing?

Post by Juniper »

I set my tent up on top of a little hill last night. It was so clear I didn't put the fly on. While I was laying down I looked up thru the screen and the stars were amazing! There were stars on top of stars, even saw a few shooting stars. Then a little later the moon came up and lit up everything, going from the complete darkness to an almost visible landscape was pretty cool. I fell asleep and woke up to water hitting me in the face. I was just close enough to an overhanging sycamore branch that the morning dew was dripping thru the screen right on my forehead! Anyway I'm rambling....... Sorry! It reminded that I also love the sky this time of year. Where I live it's humid and hazy from may til September. This time of year the sky changes and becomes clearer. I love the deep blues during the days and the clear night skies. It's pretty awesome!
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Re: Can you feel the year changing?

Post by Firebird »

Ooo that sounds like fun Juniper! I want to go! Where are you at that the stars are so visible? We really don't see them around here. Have to drive reeeeeeealy far. But we usally take a camping trip around Mabon or just before, don't think I'll be able to make it this year, not sure yet. Those trips were like the gate way to fall for me. The night air is cool but the days are warm, the nights also being shorter would have us back at camp with a fire and a few hands of cards.
Labor day has always been a porthole of sorts not only would we be in traffic with those going to or coming from Burning Man while traveling to our campground but back in the day, school started after this holiday so it was really an official "end" to summer. All the back to school supplies and new clothing and shoes, the anticipation of another level of education, the excitement and confusion of finding new classes, getting books, reuniting with old friends. I miss that pat of Fall so much that I better regester and go back! :wink: (not this year though)
Two nights ago I was in the front yard when this lovely small breeze picked up, the air was cool, it smelled different and was electrical with west energy, I thought to self the shift is fully here, yet we are in for a few more 100+ days coming up, sooooooooo not just yet. :flyingwitch:
“There are things known and things unknown and in between are the Doors.”
― Jim Morrison
“All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”
― RWEmerson
:mrgreen:
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Tylluan
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Re: Can you feel the year changing?

Post by Tylluan »

I miss the stars too. Too much light pollution where I live. All you can see is street lights and the red shining M from McDonalds which is visible from the back garden. I really long to be away from Mans noise here but I don't think anywhere is quiet anymore. Even in the middle of nowhere here there is a flight path or distant motorway swooshing. I'd love to be wrong, but I think that's how it is now on our crammed little Island. Do like writing to companies though and being a pain about light pollution. There is an Audi garage behind us that had spotlights on full from 6pm until 4am. No need for it and it was making the owls suffer so I wrote to the Environment agency and complained nicely. They didn't have to turn them off legally, but being a posh company they did because they didn't want bad publicity.

The geese are early here. I thought that too. Normally they don't arrive until October. They are either local from one of the lakes, or confused. There is nothing more wonderful on a frosty Winter morning than mans silence and a flock of honking geese. It almost makes me want to cry. Not through sadness, just that in this world that mankind is messing up, things are still working despite us. It gives me much needed hope :)
My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring. And carried aloft on the wings of the breeze. For above and around me the wild wind is roaring. Arousing to rapture the earth and the seas.
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