Must Be Late Summer

It must be late summer and almost fall.

We are eating from the garden.

(Picture peek-a-boo p.s.: If you haven't read The Penderwicks, it's a must. So, so good. We just read it together and absolutely _loved_ it.)

The black-eyed-Susans are blooming in the backyard.

Monsoon-like weather is coming to a close with its deep indigo clouds that roll in just about every afternoon.

I went to the first football game last Saturday, and made a peach pie with fresh peaches from the orchard the night before.

School has started again, with big changes in our house. (#hardbutgood)

And...the canning has begun.

Jamming and canning, to be precise.

Two weeks ago found the girls and I in the kitchen one night.

I was washing fresh raspberries and dumping them into a container where the girls were crushing them.

Mia was busy mixing the pectin mix with the berries, filling jars, and labeling them.

Benj came up in the middle of it and exclaimed, 

"I love when there's cooking going on in the kitchen at night!"

(My sentiments exactly, actually. There's something about the quiet of night time, an open back door with fresh air (or not), background tunes or just listening to crickets, and spending time together. It takes me to some fond places in my childhood and many, many conversations in the kitchen, late at night, with my dad. It's kind of strange, really, to be the parent now, and not the child.

What happened? How did it all go so fast?)

Benj pulled out a bowl, filled it with salsa, grabbed some chips, and ate while reading Calvin & Hobbes while the girls and I worked. 

Oh, and photo bombed.

And this week? 

When Claire and I dropped off the kids at school on Monday morning, we came home and watered the pots outside and cleaned up the kitchen.

But afterward, we went out to the garden because I knew we had tons of tomatoes in that happy mess of green.

We didn't even pick the vines clean, and this is what we came away with.

Had to get those done, too.

 So yeah...the kitchen has been a hot, steamy, sticky place this week as we've bottled quarts that we'll pull out for spaghetti sauce and soups during the rest of the year. 

They're getting older, and it's fun to be side by side, doing whatever.

Like last night. 

The kitchen was warm, more quarts of tomatoes were processing, 

made dinner, made cookie dough, 

had friends stop by unexpectedly and we ended up out on the deck as it got windy and started to rain.

It. was. lovely.

We ended up piling them in our car to drive them home, listening to the Indigo Girls. 

And when we got home? Those two girls and I went for a run.

It was raining, thundering, and lightning was occasionally torching the sky.

But we ran, even Claire, with her (comparatively) shorter legs.
She kept right up.

We talked and laughed and ran as it got dark.

The best.

Tomorrow is September 1st. 

I'm going to put fall on my mantle this weekend:

owls, nuts, a little glass pumpkin from Cape Cod that was a gift from my dad, golden yellow and orange ginkgo leaves, coppers and golds and browns, a sparkly black spider and small little witch hat to offer a Halloween tease.

And?

I'm gonna make a wreath for my front door out of dried putka pods, and then I think? I'll hang it with burlap ribbon.

Welcome to my favorite time of year.

(I've already been burning a cider candle, melting apple jack wax squares to fill my kitchen with that apple cinnamon smell, and I can tell the heat is on the brink of retreat.
All good things.)