The biggest sign that autumn is on the way, besides the shorter days, is that the leaves on the walnut trees out front are starting to turn yellow and drop to the ground. Otherwise, we’re basically surrounded by evergreens here – mostly Live Oaks with their pointy, holly-like leaves, and a few Jeffrey’s Pines. The evergreens would be a better accessory if the ground wasn’t just dusty dirt with stubbles of dry, yellow grass here and there.

The hillsides around here have been eaten to the ground by the cows, and they’re really scrounging lately for food, or so it seems. Back in the hills, there’s a cow grate/gate breaking a barbed wire fence that’s supposed to keep our neighbors cows (the ones all around us) separate from the cows that live further back down our road. (The grate is something you can walk or drive over, but something that would be harder for hooved animals to trust.) Usually, only “Barney”, the big black angus bull that was here for a while, would dare cross the grate, but now John tells me that all the cows just trapse across it easily – amazing what a bit of hunger can do to help conquer fears.

And of course, it hasn’t rained here since April, although we’ve had some lovely misty mornings, but that’s not the same. It’s at this time that I tend to miss the seasons on the east coast, or in cooler, wetter climates, the most. Especially the color changes in the Autumn – watching the walnut tree leaves go from green to yellow to dead isn’t quite the same – LOL. I miss birch and maple trees, and the real pulpy and brown apple cider we’d get every year from the local apple orchards in Upstate New York.

Alas, I think I need a vacation, and a move. 😉