I love Autumn. John will laugh when he reads this because I say that about all the seasons as one changes to the next, but the arrival of Fall brings wonders. The air is cooler, the colors are sharper, and the light seems to resonate deeper off of whatever it reaches. 

Since we’ve moved to the farm, I’ve tried to focus more on finding mental “snapshots” ~ those small moments of beauty that seem given to us by grace if we only pay attention. I’m getting so much better at seeing them, and the colors of Fall just seem to lend themselves to these small moments. The white of August’s Queen Anne’s Lace has flowed into the deep yellow of Goldenrod; the greens of summer’s immature grapes are gradually turning into the purples that foretell harvest; and the tomato plants that have grown together into a forest are dotted with deep red fruits no matter how many I’ve picked the day before!

But I think that, for this year, what’s really echoing the changing season is the morning fog that settles over our farm.  We can watch it moving across our neighbor’s corn field on its way to our pastures as we drink our coffee. By the time Vega and I are walking around the perimeter of the fields, the sun has risen, and the fog’s been broken into pieces, with only the low areas still filled. It mutes the color of the Goldenrod and covers the creatures in our fields until we’re almost on top of them. Vega has startled entire flocks of birds, the little Thirteen-lined ground squirrels that we almost mistake for sticks poking out of the ground until they move, and on more than one morning, we’ve been startled ourselves when our resident deer ~ a momma, two babies, and a buck ~ crash out of the corn field and race in front of us, up and over the hill and back into the fog. 

Small moments of grace to start the day in a wonderful new season.