abundance.

It is late summer here.  The air has changed, and we are transitioning from summer to autumn.  This is the start to my favorite time of year.  The days are getting shorter, but the sunlight is still plentiful.  The weather is cooler, and the crickets fill each night with their symphony.  In the garden, it is harvest time.  Each day we head out to the garden to pick a few veggies for snacking, some for dinner, and even more for preserving.

There is a feeling of abundance that comes at harvest time.  We look no further than our own backyard, our neighbor's small farm, or a friend sharing from their own garden to feed ourselves each evening.  Everything we need is right here.  The kids delight in heading out to pick what is needed for dinner, and you can see the pride in their faces as they march back toward the house with freshly picked veggies in tow.

There is also a great deal of work that comes this time of year.  We are still relatively new to preserving our own food.  We started five years ago with a few batches of jam and each year we preserve a little more. There is something special about opening a jar of your own preserves in the darkness of winter.  Each jar is a time machine sending you back to the abundance of harvest time.  I am soaking up as much of this time as I can, spending my days in the late summer sun, surrounded by the sounds of my garden companions, the bees, birds, frogs, and my own children playing nearby.  Before long, we will be bidding one another farewell as we head into the quiet of winter. But for right now, in this moment, I am enjoying the abundance of food, family, time, and companionship in the garden.