Autumn in the air

It feels like Fall is coming early this year.  The days are still hot and humid in our part of the world, but the nights have begun to glisten with the chill of fall.  I find myself needing a sweater to put the chickens to bed at night.  Yesterday I sat and watched the delicate yellow leaves of the walnut trees rain down as a brisk wind ran through the branches.  And if that isn't proof enough, I harvested and baked the first of our pumpkins. 

 

These little beauties are from our one "Winter Luxury" plant.  Really a gorgeous variety, with that delicate silver netting over the orange rind.  In addition, they are delicious!  I baked and pureed them, and ended up with 12 cups of puree.  That's enough for 6 pies!  So I simply had to make a pumpkin pie straight away, you know, to make sure it tasted good. 

 

 

Around this time of year I find myself getting all excited for no reason at all.  I'll be lying in bed at night, trying to go to sleep, and just buzzing with excitement.  I don't even know what I'm excited about.  Maybe it's leftover from being younger and getting the 'going back to school' butterflies in my stomach.  Either way, the chill of approaching Autumn always makes me want to dive into something new. 

 

Lately I've been feeling out of touch with my body.  I started running again three weeks ago, and that has helped, but I've been struggling for quite some time with this sensation of feeling heavy, slow, and clunky where I used to feel light, lithe and graceful.  We threw a party at our home Saturday night, and I had the opportunity to play with a friend of mine who is an amazing acrobatic yoga teacher. We've known each other for several years, but have not had the opportunity to do acro together. I've played with it a bit, but never with an experienced partner.  So when he flew me and we started moving through postures together, I was thrilled with the ease and grace of the movements.  It felt amazing. 

 

Later on we danced together, after I learned that he did ballroom and swing dancing for years.  It's been a very, very long time since I took a beginner's salsa or jitterbug class... we're talking at least 5 years.  But again, when matched a strong and talented partner, the movements came easily to me, and I found myself lost in the joy of it.  I used to feel that way all the time when dancing with my hoop.  I'm hoping that I'll be able to find a salsa night somewhere out here in the sticks... I'm hoping that learning a new movement art will help me find my creative space within the hoop again.