Heat Index

If I have heard the term at all this summer, it has only been a couple of times. There may have been two or three days when we whined about being too warm, but it has been the coolest summer in my memory.

We never even took the cover off the little air conditioner. There have been other summers when we sweltered along without it, trying to save on electricity, but never have we just not wanted it.

Many evenings are so cool that I come down in the morning to find all the inside doors closed....virtually unheard of in this big house, designed so well for natural air cooling (which is no fun in the winter!!!)

This morning, I realized, that calendar be darned, it's pretty much fall. Last night as I walked to the barn there were pockets of cool, crisp, clear air in every shady area. Crickets and cicadas are screaming. Little brown warblers are showing up in the hedgerows.

The grass on the hill behind the house has turned pinky-gold; I just heard a chickadee, cardinals and other cold time birds are beginning to hang around too. The sun comes up, all lazy and slow, as far south as the big cherry tree in the hedgerow between us and town.

On one hand I am so not ready. We really need to get some hay made or it is going to be a real tough year when tax time comes around. On the other hand it is really nice out.

Oh, and thank you so much to Jan of the Poodle and Dog blog for this lovely post about farming. She gets it!