"Thirty days hath September..."

Thirty days hath September…the rhyme runs through our heads recently, though indeed we try not to count off the days around here too many at a time or too often. The oppressive heat and humidity of the Summer we have navigated duly, and continue to face with brave -- and it could be said – with refreshed faces, and try not to rush too quickly into the hoped-for chill of the Fall, the reality of which is promised a little around the bend, as September has come. Fatima Farm has allowed a wonderful step off the familiar path into relatively unknown ways, and a break from regular air-conditioning is one of them, and the results are good. Strangely like the first experience of snow, in that brush with reality in a newly invigorating or nearly forgotten kind of way, living days out in the heat by the sweat of one’s brow – or at least with the sweat on one’s brow -- has been for the whole family a breath of fresh air, actually so in the sense that relief from the over-warmth of the day comes with the natural coolness of day’s end, when open-windowed breezes carry off the stifling heaviness that sometimes weighs down our bodies and spirits in the afternoons. Then, there is the great outdoors, with the trees offering their cool shade, the creek offering its cool water, and the wind -- and often, respite in the form of an afternoon thunderstorm, topped off by a whole-sky rainbow – making it difficult not to ask if it had really been so hot today? We are breathing easier, feeling better, and singing along with Mother Goose the months of the year but enjoying our days one day at a time. Thank God for His providential care and endless wisdom! May we realize His bounty each day with childlike wonder, natural piety, and hearts turned to His will!