Currently

Fall started just a few days ago.  We celebrated mostly with farm projects, failing to mark the transition of season with any particular equinox ceremony.  The whole suite of work to prepare for future seasons is inherently a celebration of turning into fall, though, so I'll consider shoveling manure, building more compost bins, walking every morning through the pasture, wondering about cover crops, planting times, how best to dig more beds...all of it a bit of celebration of fall. 

Through all of that, we notice: 

water: cold. a jump into the Bitterroot River after hot and sweaty errands proved the local water currents these days are absorbing our cold nights; that might have been the last river-dip of the year.

air: thick.  morning cold, afternoon hot, all the time filled with smoke.  today is the worst yet, burning in chests and eyes, giving a slight twilight look to the light the entire day. 

creatures: moving.  five red-tailed hawks circling an updraft over the pasture yesterday, four deer passing through and riling up the horses next door to a miniature stampede.  osprey talking from the treetops.  blue woolly aphids emerging all at once on Saturday, and explosion of micro-fluff and blue flashes. 

And the colors continue to shift.  A few yellowing leaves drift down, apples redden, the pasture grasses hold on to golden brown; Malaya blends right into them, and the feather found on our morning walk matches the dog, the pasture, and the season.  Welcome to fall.