It’s fall!
Well, not quite, but our fall calving season started early on the farm, because we put embryos in last November, and they started dropping mid-August.
I love calving season. I go out every morning on the four-wheeler and look for new babies hiding in the grass, standing on new, wobbly legs or trotting beside their moms, keeping a leery eye on the noisy machine that is interrupting their first breakfast!
I will never tire of watching a new little one enter the world.
Last week I got to see Cookie, a cow who was born on our farm in PA and who came down to Virginia as a nursing calf and who now has had two calves of her own for us, birth this year’s offering – a sweet little heifer. It was a bittersweet joy because earlier that day Cookie’s mom, #3, had a still birth.
I was able to grab a pic of Cookie and her newborn – so new she hadn’t even stood up for the first time – with #3 in the background. She’d been over to check things out, sniff Cookie and give her a little encouragement, before she went back to grazing, nearby, just in case her help was needed.
It wasn’t. Cookie’s baby slipped into this world pretty easily and under one of the most stunning sunsets in recent memory.
I usually think of spring as a time of new birth, but fall is when cooler temps kill off the flies and other insects that have plagued us all summer, giving us a welcome reprieve from their annoyance. (Just as an aside, my husband has a real issue with chiggers. His legs are covered with bites, and he even has them on his stomach and arms. He wears boots, socks, and pants everywhere. While I run around in flip flops, knee-length skirts and sleeveless shirts and they don’t bother me at all. I guess I just don’t taste very good. : )
Fall mornings just smell fresh and clean and pure, like the air had been run through a purifier all night long.
This time of year, I think about picking apples and long to go to an orchard and see the dark green leaves, the red apples and the blue, blue sky. I worked on an orchard with my kids when they were young, taking my youngest child in a pack-n-play and picking bushels of apples with my older kids. We’d get paid and go home, I’d get some buttermilk and we’d sit on the back porch and read poetry as we rested from our labors, enjoying the play of words and the rhythm of the stories in verse. Mom might show up with an apple pie – her specialty – and the boys would gather around Nana and brag about how many bushels of apples they picked. Beautiful memories of by-gone days that were so much fun.
The days are getting shorter, and I have my twinkle lights out, candles lit and my blankets ready to snuggle in. Fall evenings with the soft lights burning are the best times to write, to create the stories in my head and breathe life into them, sweet and gentle, in the safe warmth of our resting home. Spring and summer are so busy and winter can be harsh, but fall is the perfect time for stories to come to life.
Sometimes we play games in the evenings as well, and sometimes we take drives, watching the leaves as they blow across the road and we explore remote areas we see in the other seasons, but don’t have time to travel down.
Whatever season we’re in is always my favorite. But I definitely look forward to autumn! What do you do this time of year?
USA Today best-selling author Jessie Gussman writes sweet and inspirational romance from her farm in central Virginia. Having attended, but never graduating from the school of hard knocks, Jessie uses real life on the farm to inspire her cowboy, rural and blue-collar fiction.
When she’s not chasing kids, cows and the occasional roll-away haybale, Jessie enjoys wading in Naked Creek and not cleaning her house. Most of the time her main goal is to keep from catching herself on fire…again.
If you enjoy fun stories with vivid characters showcasing strong families with a ribbon of faith tying everything together, you might enjoy Jessie’s books.
A lot of my time is spent preserving produce from the garden, weeding and deadheading the flowerbeds and garden, and practicing my violin. I also listen to a book while doing these mindless chores (not the practicing), so I guess you could say I spend a lot of time listening to stories, too!
I love to can, but since we moved down here, I don’t do much of it anymore. I didn’t know you played the violin too! That’s so neat! I loved going out in my porch before the kids got up and playing into the dawn.
Alot of early morning walks just before daylight.
So beautiful! That’s the best time to walk!
It is not that I do anything differently but I love that I can throw up the windows. You can’t do that during summer because we get such muggy heat. And of course pumpkin spice everything!
That is so true! I love having the windows open. I usually keep them cracked year round. And pumpkin spice is awesome!
Fall is my favorite time of year. It’s like spring, doesn’t last long. Just one of the things living in Florida. Long summers and sometimes we get some winter days. Not many. I think I like the colors of fall. Deep burgundy, reds, oranges, yellows, and greens. Some of my favorite colors. I like to go to fall events/festivals. We have a few around here.
Thanks for the trip around memory lane Jessie! I can still remember the smell of cows and seeing the newborns! Dad didn’t name the heifers, but they had their tags and he wrote down the what gender and kept up with how many they had.
For some of our cows, their number is their name and we know them that way. Everyone knew who #16 was! Lol
4A5 is one of my favs. And that’s her name – 4A5.
Once the temperatures cool enough, I can open my window at night and put a fan in it., way better than an ac and also seeing all the colorful beautiful leaves.
Amen and amen!
I have always loved fall. The colors and the smells are wonderful, colored leaves and the smell as they dry, corn being cut for silage, apples, pears and grapes that add fragrance to my whole yard. And, the wonderful smells of baking those fruits and making all sorts of good things with tomatoes, onions and peppers to preserve and eat on cold winter days.
Autumn brings about many things for my husband and I. We travel for a couple weeks. This year to Washington state. Then, we have bonfires at home until the snow flies. We dehydrate apples for a month. Sweet Tango apples are my favorite. After the first hard frost, I dig dahlias and prepare them for winter storage. We walk through the woods and enjoy the change of color in the leaves. It is a glorious time of year. Oh, and I read lots of books once winter truly sets in. So happy to meet you in Deadwood. I always enjoy your blog Jessie. Thank you for all your stories.
So many things to do in the fall. You are a busy lady! It was wonderful to meet you too!
just finish the hay for the season last weekend, so that equipment has been cleaned and put away, now to ready the combine for the upcoming harvest!
We have our silage pile covered, but we’re still making hay!
I’m not sure what my favorite season would be, I like parts of them all.
I love whatever I’m in!
I love this time of year. It starts getting cooler, leaves start turning, apples are crisp–it’s my favorite season.
I love this season. I love watching all the new fall colors appear.
So much to love!
My favorite time of year is the fall with all the beautiful colors of the leaves, especially in the Smoky Mountains. It is my favorite place to be any time of the year. Even in summer you can find a beautiful place and refreshing mountain creeks which seem to cool the air. I do like the flowers in the spring, but they have a struggle when it gets hot and I do not care to spend time outside in the heat. I can be in the mountains anytime as there always seem to be a breeze blowing. I saw a picture just recently of Bar Harbor and the various colors of the leaves really stood out in beautiful contrast. Woww!!
It’s always pleasant in the mountains and I love streams. So pretty!
Florida doesn’t participate in fall. All this time of year means for me is the peak of hurricane season, and while Idalia visited last week, we’re praying that Lee makes that northerly turn as we do NOT want a Cat 4 or higher storm to hit!! Especially since I live on the Atlantic side!
Hurricanes are a part of Florida life, I suppose. Hugs!
We usually go to the mountains to see the vibrant colors. The trees are pretty in the Piedmont where I live, but they’re always more intense in the mountains. While we’re there, I buy a bushel of apples to bring home.
I agree that the mountains are so beautiful in the fall!
Aside from preparing for Halloween, I watch the leaves turn in the park, enjoy the last of the flowers, and watch tge birds in the pond as they get ready to fly south.
Sounds fun and relaxing!
Hello Jessie, so good to hear from yo again. I love autumn also. temps are cooling slightly, Gods creation is slowly getting ready to take a rest. When I lived in the Mojave Desert, autumn was fun. School was starting up again, baby pigs, and baby chicks. It was a small family farm. But we all loved it. Thanks for sharing your time.
Living in the desert would be quite an experience!
Fall is my favorite. I grew up in apple country in Northern NY state. We lived across the street from an orchard. We could have all he “drops” we wanted and apples off the trees of certain varieties that were not picked or sold. My mom worked sorting for several years. We would go watch them press cider and get gallons of it. Drop a few raisins in it and with a little time, you would have hard cider. Everything now is pasteurized , so that doesn’t work any more. I love baking apple pies and make quitwe a few every year. We make and freeze apple sauce, also. I enjoy just eating apples. Fall produce is some of my favorite and the type that will keep for a while.
The crisp air, colors, and just the fresh smell of the air are something I look forward to. It is one of the best times to go hiking.
Fall is a beautiful season! Here in the Midwest, we get a good amount of all four seasons, but sometimes Fall gets a little lost. The Summer’s hot and humid days will often drag on a bit too long, and then, suddenly turn cold, and slide right into the long winter days. I always wish that Spring and Fall could be just as long as Summer and Winter. In the Fall, my school teacher neighbor, lets me pick his apple trees. He never has the time to pick more than a few, to eat, and the rest would go on the ground, wasted.
For every two bushels I pick, he gets an apple pie, or sometimes, a sheet of apple squares. We both benefit from this arrangement. He has a serious girlfriend this year, so I am wondering, if they get married, will she want to start picking the apples, and baking, herself, or will we all still benefit from our neighborly arrangement.