It’s still very warm at the tail end of summer.  The light is very beautiful and it is easy to pretend that fall isn’t coming, but it is.  It gets dark a little earlier.  There is a pleasant breeze that I love, cooling and fresh.  For those who adore the baking heat there is no pretence.  The red and yellow leaves that are starting to appear are alarm flags.  Almost done…almost but not quite.  The other day a flock of birds suddenly appeared and stripped one of my grape vines bare in about  half an hour.  I was ‘t really paying attention. It registered that there were rather a lot of little sparrows fluttering around my back door and in the  leaves of the arbour but when I came out to hang some clothes on the line I realized that these little marauders had eaten almost every single grape. Better them than the racoons,that occasionally get wind of a nice dessert just waiting to be picked.  I,have another vine over the back garden gate and the birds didn’t notice it or perhaps they thought the grapes weren’t quite ripe.  Many were purple and sweet today so I picked a lot and will wait a few more days to make jam.  I did it last year and it was quite a success

The apples are falling now.  I never spray the tree as it seems a mean thing to spray a tree where so many birds sit, where beautiful flowers announce spring.  The apples are Red Delicious,  my least favorite.  I stupidly bought the tree without thinking of the type of apple. I just wanted the blossoms.  I will make applesauce with lots of nutmeg as the apples are quite tasteless

Ah, dear vines .  I have pruned them alone or in company.  Happy and hopefully, sinking into the wet snow of April or sometimes in bitter tears.  My heart sometimes was open like the wide sky of a fine spring day, and just as lonely.  Dear vines that do not fail me.  Soon the leaves will fall one by one to let the grapes ripen little by little.  Nature that is wise and methodical, not like the poor gardeners who pretend to have control, to be in charge and are in truth like the little white clouds above, at the mercy of every errant wind.