September: More blessings every day

While it is true that every day is filled with blessings, there is something about September that leads me to believe that there are more blessings in every single day of this certain month than we can count on our two hands.
Even if we are blessed with old age, there are only so many Septembers in a given life. Each day of September splendor should be enjoyed to the highest.
Enchantment. Yesterday, with the breeze blowing in from the north, I took my dogs for a long walk around the farm. The abundance of fluttering butterflies captivated Channing, our English Shepherd pup, while the tiny Yorkie, Chantico, was enchanted by the ponies circling in the northern pasture.
She felt the need to bark at them a few times, just to let them know who’s boss. She would then scurry her little two-pound body quickly back to my side, her head held high.
Spanky, Cort’s all-white Pekingese, decided he simply had to go visit the grazing beef cattle, and came back to join us for the rest of our walk looking more like a brown mutt. The Westies, ever eager to please, stayed near, pretending that I am their sole fascination, until a swallow swoops low, that is. Certain things cannot be ignored by a terrier!
Taking it in. I watched as a squirrel seemed to play some sort of game with a gray barn cat, both scurrying from one tree to another, the squirrel practically taking flight in order to dash the cat’s hope of ever catching up.
The cat decided to go check out the pond, hoping for a slower foe to chase there.
This place holds all sorts of little surprises, not the least of which is the Amish children who smile and wave to me as they walk home from school at the end of the day, their bare feet kicking up freshly-mown grass. They are in no hurry as they enjoy whatever the walk home brings to their attention.
Dead of summer. The dead of summer doesn’t hold as much fascination for me as it once did. September is filled with a mellow, quiet promise of all sorts of possibilities, a subtle reminder that nothing lasts forever, and the perfect weather in which to take it all in.
Sarah Orne Jewett, who lived from 1849-1909, perhaps said it best:
“This was one of those perfect New England days in late summer where the spirit of autumn takes a first stealthy flight, like a spy, through the ripening countryside, and, with feigned sympathy for those who droop with August heat, puts her cool cloak of bracing air about leaf and flower and human shoulders.”