I’ve noticed the passing seasons by what I gather and cut outdoors to bring inside. It’s only early September but I can see, smell, hear, feel and taste the change. Despite a lingering sadness in me that I have to say goodbye to summer and the swallows who sang to me every morning outside my window, I’m becoming invigorated by the arrival of a new season.
What really made me realise that the change of season has its benefits was gathering flowers, berries and plants from my garden and the border hedgerows to bring indoors.
In a nearby field I could hear the sound of tractors and a combine harvester while hawks soared and mewed in the sky above. I briefly went into the woods and had to give way to a tractor bringing grain freshly cut from a field.
When I went to check the ripening of sloes and wild damsons in the hedgerow, deer fled. Birds kept fluttering out of the hedgerows unless I stood silently and waited.
Soon my basket was overflowing with flowers and berries and plants from the garden and the hedgerows. I emptied it on a garden bench and table and soon easily refilled it.
Many of our roses were having new blooms for September. Lavender needed to be brought in and dried. More blackberries picked to be frozen for Autumn crumbles (and definitely another dessert fool). Dried seed pods to be saved for the spring. Even poisonous berries to be admired but only in decorations. Maybe it was time to make another bottle of wild rosehip cordial to add to ice cream and lemonade as well as seep wild plums in vodka and gin to sip before the spring.
And so I brought flowers and nature treasures inside to make arrangements in vases and to store for future recipes. As I looked at the early September bounty which captured the mood of the new season, I felt ready to embrace the changes ahead.
What splendid harvest to celebrate the changing season. Magnificent photographs too! Thank you for reminding me to look around me at the flowers and berries as autumn sets in.
The sun has returned too so it’s making me even happier about the change. And thank you.
Such beautiful photos. And that table of flowers makes my heart sing. I am feeling very excited about the autumn, although today is so warm that I’m actually wearing shorts. #theprompt
It does make a huge difference with the better weather this week while enjoying nature changing the season!
I went and made my myself a cup of tea before I opened your post as I knew it was one I would want to savour, and I was right. Now that my three are all in school, these are the sort of mornings I want to allow myself. Time to just wander and enjoy everything around me, to notice it more, breathe it in. This is such a beautiful post, and the photos are gorgeous. I love autumn, and although I have really enjoyed our long, hot summer, I am just about ready for the change in season. Thank you so much for sharing this with #ThePrompt x
Oh thank you Sara for your lovely comments. I wasn’t ready for the change of season until I spent the morning enjoying and appreciating it.
Lovely harvests you found there, still beautiful even though Summer is moving away 🙂
Oh what a beautiful bounty it is, too. The rich berries that are out now really add something to the flowers, don’t they? Gorgeous x
I do love your flower arrangements. Autumn has snook over to France too – the swallows left this week and the hedgerows are full of blackberries and sloes. The wheat is all harvested but the sweetcorn and sugar beet for animal feed is still in the fields. The colours of the countryside are changing and whilst I am always a touch sad to bid summer farewell, I love all that autumn brings.
We had house martins nesting in the apex above our bedroom window last year – I missed their chatter in the morning when they left. You’ve collected some lovely things to bring indoors.
I’m so sad the swallows are gone! Suddenly it’s very quiet when I wake up.
I’ve still got lots of roses blooming and huge fat red rose hips in the garden, I should really try something with them like syrup. Gorgeous pretty displays you have put together.