In the last week or so the light has changed ever so slightly from the glaring heat of summer to the tilting promise of fall. I say promise because autumn is my most favorite time of the year. For one thing for those of us who are not sun worshipers the days are less intense and therefore friendlier to the need of long sleeves. But it is also a time of anticipation of changes to come. As I say this I fully understand that once those changes do come, the holidays, I am a basket case and take to picking out my eyelashes one by one in order to avoid the onset of December. Be that as it may, the hope of fall always lulls me into a belief that somehow, someway good things are yet to come.

This year, with all the excitement I have accumulated in my pocket, I actually believe in change and have so decided to grasp it. In this spirit I have embraced the last few days of summer and have mostly enjoyed them to the fullest with the children. Saturday night Devon, Cass and I slept out under the stars in hopes of catching a few straggling shooting stars. We didn’t see any but it was good fun to feel the night breeze through the screen of the tent and wake up in a dog pile of family. Today Cassidy and I headed over a neighboring mountain to a peach orchard where we harvested not only peaches, but tomatoes, grapes, some sort of pepper and an egg plant. I haven’t the foggiest idea what to do with an egg plant, but it was just so darn pretty that Cass couldn’t help but pluck it off the vine. We then sat by a small river and ate fresh tomatoes and caramel corn until we were full. And with that summer was over. It was a wonderful three months, some of the best 90 days I have had in my life. A good beginning for fall.