Fall

My calendar marks the autumn equinox Saturday, the 23rd. But today was fall.

It's been cold, unseasonably cold and wet for days. Last week's forecast for a return to summer has gone unmet. In Edmonton, on our single-day break between farms, we traded our sun hats for toques and knit gloves. Possibly the best $8 I've ever spent.

Yesterday Aslin celebrated her 10th birthday in the company of horses and the welcoming peole here at Touchstone Farm. Her place at the breakfast table was set with ribbons, a "Happy Birthday" banner hung behind. She joind an equestrian student from Germany, grooming a show horse and caring for a colt with colic.

Mid afternoon, we lost power. And not because all four lights in the riding arena were on. Radiant floor heating with out electricity won't warm the house. The scraps of last year's firewood won't get us through the night. Brad and I went with Chris to cut wood, perhps the trees downed by the beavers.

Power returned in time for Wenday to bake a birthday cake. Aslin blushed, giggling, struggling to find the air to blow our her candles. After dinner we sat around the wood stove. Baby Finn, along with the rest of us, learned "hot" in four languages. "Don't touch, ouch" in german, french, japanese and english.

This morning brought lists- the "to do's" of preparing for winter. We cut and stacked more wood. Today, aspen, birch and spruce downed by beaver, cleaned of leaves and small branches by the goats. Stall cleaning, hay gathering, chainsaw repair, clearing fence lines, chard washing... It might drop below 0 tonight.

Still, time for a late afternoon walk. 800 acres and a river that twists in every direction. Under fences, across fallen trees with eyes open for mosse and hawks. The leaves are turning, fewer reds than soft-greens. Golds. I stepped into a patch of wild chamomile, the kind my sister and I use to collect outside my mom's rock garden. We'd snap the button tops for decoration of our mud pies. I felt the Alaska I didn't know I'd forgotten. Coyotes howl. Close or just echoing over the hills?

I've never seen a barn so big, never stayed in one. Photos from the side, from the front to show the additions. * Camera tucked back in my pocket, a light raindrop hit my nose. Tomorrow, harvesting turnips and planting garlic. And the 200 horses.

* It'll be next week before we get new pictures up. Dial up. Could be for the best, gives me plenty of time to choose my words for our last farm. As co-wwoofer Elka so delicately put it, "So, it's much different than your expectation."