Under the Beech Tree - September

A typical September morning.. starting off misty.
The sun broke through maybe half hour later and became a
lovely, hot, sunny day

No sign of leaves turning in the big trees..
many of the smaller ones though (like my maples) have

There's a definite feel of autumn in the air.. brisk misty mornings and cooler evenings.  The pigeons and crows are gathering too.. I LOVE hearing the crows call - though it always reminds me of Hagrid's hut in the Harry Potter movies since watching them :)

Gemstone - Sapphire
Flower - Aster

Alpine Aster from Culpeppers Herbal 1812
Image Shrewsbury Museum Service

Anglo Saxons called September Haefest Monath - Harvest Month

I don't really have much trivia or folklore to bore you with :) for September.. This is the month when all educational establishments (here in the UK at least) go back after their summer breaks.  This is the first year in the last 15 where I don't have a child returning to full time school - though they are both still going to part time college, it feels very different.  No mad dash getting uniforms and equipment brought and ready.. no gloom from kids because of the impending return to school :)  I felt quite liberated while shopping seeing all the moms and kids scurrying round buying the necessities (moms with the usual harried look of 'Back to School' shopping trips).. knowing I didn't have to do that this year.

I love watching the year roll round and the seasons turn.  We usually go watch the farmer harvest the wheat field next to our house in August.. when the kids were small he would wave at them every time the combine harvester thundered past (we were well back) he's very late this year though,  hope he comes soon or it'll be no good.

Well, I'll leave you with a little Keats - I love the first line.. so perfectly descriptive.

From John Keats' poem, To Autumn, 1820:

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.