the day before yesterday the season shifted. i could feel it within, autumn starting to fall. also, a slight fragrance in the air, the light a little moodier, and most importantly the temperature cooler, even though technically it's still very very warm.
i sowed new kinds of poppies this year, and most of them didn't make it through the cold june followed by the oven-like july, but the peony-petaled black ones are opening up, all two of them, and i also found some miniature ones in the bud, don't know which ones they are but they could go in the vase in a dollhouse.
my friends' 14-year-old daughter spent last weekend here. it was fun, we went to the woods, swimming and crawled through a cave under a boulder. she had a school project, to identify and photograph plants herbarium-style, and it was all i could do not to take over... kind of jealous i was, we never did it in school and i would have totally aced the task! so, i tried to be helpful but at the same time urge her to do the work. she was great company but i could never be a parent, kids need too much attention and feeding... but it's a kind of luxury to be the cool 'auntie'. of course i'm that much cooler now that i've got the rats.
beets and chard thrive in the garden boat and any day now i will harvest the blue potatoes. i have a lot of catching up to do with foraging and gathering food for winter, though. if i was useless before, now all i do is stare at the rats being silly and adorable, even and especially when they sleep which is pretty much all day.
at last it has started to rain, and some mushrooms are emerging in the woods. i spotted some slime mold that had woken up and started to roam. they fascinate me endlessly. this one's called paranvoi, or the butter of para, a spirit that was said to steal the milk from cows, urged by a witch. it would drop or vomit this yellow substance when running away. similar folklore is known in other nordic countries as well.
