The Last Days of Summer

Early summer on Tortuga Flats Farm

Fall officially begins on September 22, which puts me smack dab in the last week of summer. We moved from the cultural urban mecca of Minneapolis to a small farm on a prairie in northern Arizona at the beginning of 2012. I'm thinking I might already be in sweatshirts by now if I still lived in Minnesota. Instead, I'm finding out what the dog days of summer really are. Our crops are winding down, many of them dying and the flies are still buzzing. I can feel and smell fall coming, but summer lingers on.

Rusty loving the dog days

Rusty, Gabby and Xena mixing it up

I have always associated the term, dog days of summer, quite literally with dogs and lazy, sunny days. I know, clueless. So I looked it up. The star called Sirius (the Dog Star) in Canis Major is quite visible in the night sky in the summer between July and August. This is usually the hottest time of summer in the northern hemisphere. Dog Days are named for the appearance of the Dog Star on the eastern horizon. I think I like my totally wrong, unscientific and nonsensical definition better - especially since we're days away from fall and the heat lingers during the long afternoons.

But the nights are cooling down, and we're still getting beautiful sunsets. Sunsets are usually very romantic. I say usually because sunsets are also relaxing. It's a nightly ritual at our house. After dinner, we all seem to migrate to the back patio to watch the sun go down. Since there are several of us, including three dogs and a cat, romance really doesn't stand a chance. This time of year, the sun sets equally over the vegetable garden and the orchard. Arizona gets some magnificent sunsets which we can thank all the dust in the air for that.

This will be our first fall and winter on our little farm. We've been so busy planting, weeding, harvesting and now canning, I'm wondering how we'll handle our time. Me? I'll get much more writing done. I can imagine long winter days at the keyboard. And gearing up for another hectic spring and summer!

If you'd like to see how our new life on the Arizona prairie is going on our little Tortuga Flats Farm, please visit me at http://brendawhiteside.blogspot.com/.

My latest release is The Morning After, one novella in the Honky Tonk Heart series from The Wild Rose Press.  http://tinyurl.com/6s99a8r

For a list on links to my other books, please check my web site. http://www.brendawhiteside.com/