SEPTEMBER - "Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang As if her song could have no ending..."

...
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;-
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more."

from "The Solitary Reaper" by William Wordsworth

Roses reaching for the sky!

Watching the last of the harvest being taken in from the fields around me when I was a little girl, left, even as young as I was then, a feeling of emptiness. Between our cottage and the field where the reaper had been was an old mere - dried up except for a small ditch running alongside. Over the summer months we had played along the mere and watched the crops grow. We were country children and the seasons affected us. The stooks were being gathered up onto the cart and the field would be left bare. As children, the success or failure of the harvest probably wasn't as big a deal for us as the fact that our summer games had ended and our freedoms would be curtailed! I watched from my tiny bedroom window and heard the men calling to each other, their heads wreathed in cigarette and pipe smoke. I tried to imagine horses pulling the full cart home to the farm. I grew up with little grey tractors but I'd heard the old men tell stories of the hard working horses and one of Mr. Mell's carts had in fact been pulled by horses once upon a time. Oh the inspiration those tales gave to an imaginative little person!! 

Harvest!

The apple harvest has started! Yesterday, we were given some "Early Windsors". I used to look forward to these coming onto the market stalls in the town near our Lincolnshire home. Originally they were from Germany where they had a different name. Whatever you want to call them, they are good apples!

We have a mixture of varieties here. The cooking apples are almost ready for harvesting - but not quite. We're now hoping for a spell of non-windy weather so that they can reach perfection without becoming windfalls.

James Grieve, in the orchard (Judith's photo)

Not all apple varieties will grow well and produce ripe fruit up here in the far north. Our summer is shorter in terms of sustained warmth and sunshine so we need to research well before adding a tree to our would-be orchard.

There are some old fashioned varieties of apple which are wonderfully labelled - "Peasgoods Nonsuch" to name one! Another interesting label is "Bloody Ploughman". The story goes that a ploughman, caught stealing apples, near Megginch Castle in Perthshire, was shot by a gamekeeper there. The apples he had stolen were thrown on the midden and, after a time, trees grew from them. His wife gave them their rather odd name.

Brambles / Blackberries

Trees, like people, don't live forever and the apple orchards planted by John Chapman through Ohio in the nineteenth century, have long since disappeared. John was known as Johnny Appleseed and carried a sack of apple seeds with him as he moved along the frontier, reading the Bible to the settlers. He planted herbs too and was acknowledged by Native Americans and white settlers alike as a clever herbalist.

What an amazing gift to share - apples and healing herbs - a truly generous legacy.

"He that plants trees loves others besides himself."

Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732

Today (29th) is Michaelmas Day - a Quarter Day. It was quite a day in the past. Even when I was a child in the mid twentieth century, fun fairs still came to the villages - a throw-back to the time of the hiring fairs when men and women were taken on as labourers for the months ahead. Michaelmas, as a quarter day, was a time for rents to be paid too and, more excitingly, a time for fun! Livestock changed hands ahead of the winter - and preparations were made to make ready for the colder, leaner times to come.

Okay, I give in, summer's over!! The Sedum turned!!!

I'm stocking up for winter already! Lots of dried foods, tins, jars, bottles and cleaning products etc.. There will be times when, as beautiful as winter weather can be, it makes prisoners of us! On those occasions we can't just pop to the shop!!

The roses have been clinging on to summertime, however, and we had another full flowering earlier this month - in spite of the misty moisty mornings dragging to earth some of their stems. I never know which is the last rose of summer until it's gone so I stay and look as long as I can at the new flowers which come on the bushes.

September roses

The rose hips will be ready on the Wild Briar soon and, if you have the patience, you can make old-fashioned rose hip syrup from them. I don't! We were given this to boost our Vitamin C when we were children - and it's very good on bread and butter pudding!

On Sunday, 1st September, we had our first symbol of autumn - lots and lots of geese passing overhead! The Forss to Lythmore road was bedecked with spiders' webs joining the gorse bushes together like angel hair on the Christmas tree.

September border

A week later, the barley harvest was going on apace until the combine harvester needed back-up! This was sorted quickly and efficiently as the swallows continued to swoop and glide over the field.

At the beginning of September, we start to make a definite mental note of when we see swallows - knowing well that one day soon will be the last day until springtime. This year, the last day we positively identified them near home was on Sunday, 22nd. My son has, this week, spotted lots of them near his home in the Rhone-Alpes region of France. They are on the move! I shall miss our Stempster swallows and look forward to having them back again in April.

Elderberries

Our regular garden birds are so friendly that they fill the gap left by the migrants. Some seem to be coming back in larger numbers so I can only think they've been breeding in the woods and hedgerows over the summer and are now staking their respective claims to a little bit of Stempster territory for the winter! They know they'll be fed here!!

If you are looking for a largeish tree which will bring birds to your garden, then please consider a Swedish Whitebeam. I didn't know what it was when we moved here - until my son-in-law told me. It really is an amazing tree - the shape of it, the colours through the seasons, the blossom and the berries. Just about all of the birds which we call our neighbours have been spotted in it at some time or other - from the tiny goldcrest to the shiny black crow wobbling like a drunkard on the topmost branch. This month I've seen the bullfinches in amongst the branches, then flying down for a drink from the birdbath, and then back up again to forage. 

Swedish whitebeam

The thrushes seem happier eating the berries underneath the tree. The recent winds have left quite a sprinkling - not only of leaves but also of berries - for those who want to rummage.
There has been a change in the mammal habits here too. September seems to be a time for change. We have noticed weasels, voles and fieldmice - I think they are also known as wood mice - scampering around the yard and garden. They weren't absent over summer but we have seen far more of them this month. 

We also spotted brown bunnies near the house. Hares outnumber rabbits close to our home. One day recently, six hares were spotted in one field and there was another nearby. They don't seem terribly afraid of us and only go away if we move towards them. If we stand still, they often stand still too. Sometimes, if we are driving along the little road home, we have to go into low gear and crawl home  behind them - they go at their own pace and don't seem to be in a hurry at such times!

The deer are coming back closer now. They leave their tracks and signs for us to find on our morning walks - and the dogs are sometimes a little unsettled by them in the night hours.
The fungi family are back with a vengeance - all kinds of strange individuals just appear in the wee wood, in the new orchard and along the roadside. We have some amongst the grass in the front garden too. We call those hattifatteners  because they look very like the wandering creatures in the Moomin stories - pale and mysterious.

Fly Agaric (Ginny's photo)

Another fungus? (Judith's photo)

The September skies have been amazing. The moon, around the time that it was full, was a stunner! The best day for us was probably Sunday, 15th. It was a Super Harvest Moon on 17th/18th and cast a warm glow over the shadowy trees. It seemed to wrap up the whole of summer and make a spotlight of it, casting its brilliance over the garden and the countryside all around us. Truly lovely!

Moon of the 15th (Ginny's photo)

We haven't just been celebrating night-light though! We've had some stunning rainbows too - the full arc looping the loop across the fields and wind farm. Being able to pick out the colours of the rainbow was always a good exercise when we were young and these recent rainbows made it so easy to do. 

Both archways built now - in the evening light

Global news brings so much sadness and so many tears, dark despair and disunity, but, whenever I look at a rainbow, I feel a channel of peace holding up this broken world. There's everything still to play for - no giving up!

Double rainbow over the wind farm (Judith's photo)

I can't finish this blog without a mention of the buds on the flowering currant hedge which marks the edge of our hill. In spring the deep pink blossom is a delight and the vivid green leaves are dense and so pretty. It fragrances our dog walks throughout summer and now that we're in autumn it is one of the symbols of hope with its buds as a sign of new life to come.

Flowering currant (Ginny's photo)

"There is nothing like a garden for making you feel small. There you are, right in the middle of the greatest miracle of all - the world of growing things." 

Geoff Hamilton