Cow Parsnip 

The first week of September brought some slightly cooler weather and the first signs of Fall are starting to show.
The wildflowers, as well as many of my own flowers, are all forming seeds. 
I'm trying to gather some (Hollyhock, Cosmos, Zinnias) and will try to sow them in my borders by just scattering them on lightly raked soil later in the fall. 
Hopefully they will grow without me having to 'do' much with them? I mean, it's only natural?

Many shrubs, like this Hawthorn, are loaded with berries!

                                                      

They are actually edible, but the seeds must be removed or carefully strained out, as they contain cyanide.
They can be eaten raw, but they are pretty tart and they're better processed into jams, jellies, and fruit leather, or dried for tea.
I don't really feel the need to try that .. yet.

The rose-hips and snow-berries are appearing as well:

     

I found some more of the local wildlife on my walk. The fawns are getting big!

           

                                                                      

And, of all things, a small flock of chickens! They must have escaped from somewhere. They were not that afraid of me, but I have no clue who keeps chickens here? 

I'll put the word out on 'Nextdoor', maybe someone recognizes them, otherwise I'm afraid they will be lunch for some lucky racoon/coyote/bobcat ..

Over the summer Samson started to cool off in the pond on hot days ...

 

... where he would do a little bit of doggie-paddling...



... but at the moment he comes out looking like a pig! ..

                                                                

The reason he looks this black is that there's very little water left in the pond, it's pretty much all mud right now:





'Normally', it's full of water but we haven't had rain for months. 
Last February it looked like this:

                                    

Fall is approaching though and the weather is changing ever so slightly. 
We've had a little rain last week, although barely measurable, but the last two nights a thunderstorm came through during which it poured for about 10 minutes!
So .. there's hope!

Talking about hope ... a terrible tragedy has happened here last Thursday ..
Remember the last post, I in which I wrote about the trusses of the barn being installed with the help of our landlord's son Josh .. well, I don't even know how to begin to write this down, but the sad truth is that he was in a horrible motor-crash accident and, although slightly improving, is still in critical condition as we speak ..

   

He broke his arm and his pelvis and due to a severed artery they had to amputate part of his lower right leg ...  he's been operated on several times already and has been kept sedated and intubated.

We've talked to Bret almost every day and he's keeping us updated, but God .... there are just no words, are there? We're all still in shock.

How fragile we are and how precious is this life we have ...

So, yeah, hope .. it's about all we have right now. Let's hope he'll keep improving.

                        At least the doctors are 'carefully optimistic'...