The harvest of crops along our road started September 12 and continues now into October. Just sections at a time have been taken so far, with the entire field to the south of us finally all gone while we are still surrounded by beautiful golden corn on the other three sides.

I write this on October 3^rd and only a few trees have begun to change color. The garden is winding down, with only the tomatoes left producing. The forecast calls for widespread frost this coming weekend, so that might be the end of it. Our son-in-law has offered in the past to bring out several containers of turkey manure to spread on the garden and I think we will take him up on the offer once we have the garden cleared out.

A few weeks ago I was cleaning up part of the machine shed when I noticed a couple of piles of animal scat, long and dark, on the floor. My first thought was raccoon, but there was no other evidence of them such as the usual chewing and general destruction. My second was a cat, for two reasons. We have seen one on our property a couple of times over the summer, and the rabbits and mice have almost disappeared. I have not seen a rabbit for maybe two months, which is roughly how long it has been since I have emptied a mouse trap around here. We might have an unseen visitor prowling the acreage.

The end of a hot, hazy summer is approaching, but many of the animals and insects on our acreage don’t seem to notice yet. The flies are still buzzing, the cicadas are still humming and the crickets in our yard and garage are still chirping. What started as tiny grasshoppers a month ago are now full grown bugs hopping and flying around everywhere, and there are dozens of dragonflies soaring through the early evening sky, showing their amazing flying skills while eating their fill of whatever they can catch. There have been strange looking bugs I can not identify, which usually only live a few days. They are long, skinny and bright green, then others came soon after that are dull green and fat. The bees that came through first were the large, loud, round bumblebees. Then about a month later came the tiny, conical shaped bees that have to fly around your mouth and eyes to find contentment. I have seen a few very small toads this season, no snakes, and the usual horde 0f rabbits.

The garden this season produced below average except for the cucumbers, which came on like nothing we have ever seen. We eat them raw everyday, have bartered some with a neighbor for farm fresh eggs, made pickles, gave some away and we are still harvesting them.

The corn and beans are browning rapidly, and we noticed recently a few fields have already been harvested. Our usually quiet road will soon be busy with trucks, tractors and combines coming and going while gathering the annual bounty.

Once again we have reached the part of summer where we are surrounded by a wall of corn. The fields in every direction are seven feet tall, obscuring most all the surrounding views of farmsteads and acreages, highways, poles and power lines. There is a small stretch of the road in front of our house visible to us, and the sky above, while the rest of our world is full of vertical green stalks. We have commented before that we have a growing privacy fence during the summer that eventually gives way to a harvest, which opens our vista again for miles in every direction during the fall, winter and early spring.

Our garden is currently as thus: tomato plants so-so, no pepper plants left, melon and cucumber plants taking over everything else. There are dozens of blooms on the vining monsters, and we are already struggling to eat and give away what we are harvesting from them. Admittedly, food abundance is a good problem to have. But this year it looks like it will mainly be cukes and melons.

I was sitting in the living room when I heard a huge THUMP against the dinning room window. Usually when a bird hits our house windows it is stunned for a minute, then gets up, shakes it off and flies away. I got up but did not see anything on the yard in front of the windows. The next day I was out weeding and came to the front of those same windows. There lay a most beautiful bird, tiny yellow feathers streaming from its tail, a hint of red on its cap. I didn’t know what species it was, but from the angle of its head, turned to the back, it was obvious this was the bird that hit our window the day before. I picked up the poor thing by its foot and examined it. So many colors, and it seemed to me like it could, if I really willed it, fly from my hand, alive and free again. I carried it it over to the hollyhocks starting to wither against the machine shed, and dropped it among the large, fading flowers.