I’m not very good at making decisions.  I try to avoid the shampoo aisle at Target.  I will think about all the possibilities and outcomes of choosing a particular thing, then look at the alternative in the same analytical way.  One way, then another.  Pros and cons lists.  No wonder nobody likes to shop with me; heck, no wonder I don’t like to shop!  It’s exhausting!  Ask me to go somewhere?  Let me think….  I also tend to make decisions based on how it affects other people in my life, which of course, is usually pure speculation on my part.  I suppose that beast Perfectionism is involved–I don’t want to make the ‘wrong’ choice, but the beast’s offspring Procrastination often ends up the winner.

Ah, September!  It is a month of one way, then another.  The days are warm and sunny, then chilly and rainy.  It is State Fair fun, then back-to-school schedules.  It is green leaves, then daily changes to red, orange, and yellow.  But there are some constants in September, like the does and fawns who make a path from the woods to the apple tree to eat up the sweet, fallen treats.  Mmm, apples!  And the fawns ‘losing’ their spots as their winter coats grow in long and thick.

September most often houses the Harvest Moon–the full moon that falls closest to the Autumnal Equinox.

Obedient Plant blooms in September.  Each individual flower on the square stem can be moved one way, then another and remains in the new position.

Monarch Butterflies get late season nectar from the pretty Sedum flowers.

Tall, wispy-stemmed Cosmos flowers outside our picture window sway one way, then another in the breeze.

September brings the combined family groups of Wild Turkeys to our yard and woods.  We can hear them scratching through the leaves on the wooded hillside searching for acorns before they emerge and stroll through the yard.  The young ones are almost as big as their mothers, and they all make an impressive troupe.

They walk in a trailing group, heads down, pecking at things as they go.  The mothers stand sentry to the group with raised heads, looking for potential danger.

Then they see something!  A couple of the young ones see it, too.

The sentries stop and watch as some of the unsuspecting young ones head down the driveway.  A black dog runs down the road, not seeing or minding the young turkeys.

Quickly the whole troupe turns around and walks in the other direction with purpose.  No time for grazing with the threat of a dog around!  They take a different path through the woods on their daily grazing journey.

September ushers in the harvest season–a time to reap that which has been sown.  All the plants and animals, including ourselves, follow the instinctive, unconscious ways of Nature to prepare us for the winter season.  We pick apples and pumpkins, corn and squash–whether from the orchards and gardens or from the markets and stores.  We make sure we have our winter coats and boots.  We check to see if the furnace works–and if it doesn’t, the freezing forecast moves that to the top of the ‘important and urgent’ list, beating Procrastination.  Maybe this season for me is the season of ‘pretty darn good’ instead of perfect.  Perhaps my internal sentry needs a vacation.  The Autumn season ‘lets go’ of one way of doing things and shows us another way, a different path.  “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”  Ecclesiastes 3:1.