Well, it hap­pened. The sum­mer ended! We woke up today to strong breezy winds high in the trees in the meadow, and lots of lit­tle heli­copters float­ing down out of the trees over the ter­race, and the begin­nings of fall foilage (as my friend Alyssa’s mother-in-law is wont to say) show­ing a hint of what is to come. We’ll have to find us some Eng­lish foilage. Surely that’s why they call this New Eng­land, because they already had all the good stuff over there?

Jill and Joel and Jane came for one last brunch, a crowded, hot affair at the Lau­rel Diner, where it turned out I was too ner­vous to eat. Avery claimed empa­thetic ner­vous stom­ach, but later the plate was dis­cov­ered at home upon which had reposed her two rit­ual Sat­ur­day morn­ing dough­nuts, so we think that was the more likely cause of her lack of appetite. Jane was CRAZY! She has entered that half-year stage that if her cousin is any indi­ca­tion, will be the only time of her life when her par­ents are sorely tempted to put ads in the paper indi­cat­ing her avail­abil­ity. But so far Jane’s crazi­ness doesn’t have the tinge of Addams Fam­ily that Avery’s did, as in her famous line to me, “You have NO FACE.” Jane’s wack­i­ness takes the form of end­less amounts of energy and lik­ing to say things fifty times, plus devel­op­ing a strong dis­like for her car seat. Ah well, this too will pass and she’ll be doing other things that drive her par­ents mad, so there you go.

Yes, I’m crouch­ing here on my front porch, for no good rea­son, and fall is lit­er­ally in the air. Also Hur­ri­cane Ernesto.

As you can see, the hor­rid movers (actu­ally they were very nice) came and deliv­ered the 87 boxes of essen­tial prop­erty that hereto­fore had been resid­ing in Whip­pany, New Jer­sey, and dumped it all in the stor­age room of our Big Barn. There­upon we went through each and every one to find my box of slides of Camille Claudel sculp­ture, and it was the only thing that did not sur­face. The only thing. But we did find miles and miles of books that Avery and I are very keen to have with us in Lon­don, and Joel has kindly taken them off to mail for us. All my Beany Mal­ones! Lots of Betsy-Tacys, all kinds of trea­sures. The copy of our neigh­bor Anne’s mother’s mem­oir, “The View From Morn­ing­side,” that I looked for for­ever in Lon­don among my books. Avery hun­kered right down on the filthy floor of the stor­age room and began to read, so we just stepped over and around her. Finally all was neat and tidy, and we went to visit Young Rollie’s baby goats! They are quite sim­ply the cutest ani­mals you’ve ever seen, and strangely clean. They do not, how­ever, come when they are called, but when they jolly well want to. And Judy brought by a last bas­ket of per­fect pro­duce from her farm stand: a new vari­ety of heir­loom pear (red and juicy even though not soft), an heir­loom tomato that was a sort of pur­plish red, the first of the season’s Con­necti­cut apples, impos­si­bly crunchy and flaw­less. They have been peer­less neigh­bors. To think of the farm func­tion­ing peace­fully while we’re away, the farm stand pro­duce giv­ing way to pump­kins, then to Indian corn, then Christ­mas trees. Where will we get our tree in Lon­don? I have vivid mem­o­ries of the sad Char­lie Brown Christ­mas trees of our past hol­i­days in Lon­don; maybe they’ve got up to speed since then and there will be a decent one to grace our curv­ing gar­den win­dows in War­bur­ton Street.

And Anne across the road should be so proud of her­self: the South­bury Land Trust pur­chase of the 93 acres sur­round­ing our house has been cel­e­brated with a new sign! How lucky we are to be hud­dled in the midst of unde­vel­opable land, adja­cent to the gor­geous Phillips Farm.

Well, I’m leav­ing behind beau­ti­fully pruned rose bushes, peony bushes, the hydrangea tree and the tiger lilies that were bloom­ing so dra­mat­i­cally when our car pulled up here that evening in July. There will, we hope, be renters to appre­ci­ate all the growth and blooms in June. Do you think they’ll mind the piles of books on every flat sur­face, or the rows of herbs and oils and vine­gars on the shelf above my kitchen counter? I could make every­thing only so imper­sonal. And then we’ll be back. I won­der what the autumn term at King’s Col­lege has in store for us? Com­pe­ti­tions no doubt, and per­for­mances and fairs and home­work and… a new girl! That’s right, Avery will no longer be the New Girl. Now it will be her turn to show some­one around. We’ll let you know how it all goes, and how the kit­ties take our return this evening! Have a great autumn.