I read a description of September recently as "a time for plans and a time for no plans." Meaning that September is a changeable and unpredictable month, mostly in terms of the weather, and that has certainly been true here this year. There have been days when it was 18C and I had to dig out Maisie's sun hat and other days I was pulling a shawl around the two of us over our sweaters and scarves and hats in order to go outside for our walk. I've made us a new carrier that covers Maisie's feet so I don't have the extra worry of booties falling off and being lost while we're out walking. I've also made her a super quick little scarf and a pair of mittens (and had my fist baby mitten battle - I'm getting better at it - she doesn't always get the first one off before the second one goes on now). I picked all my green tomatoes so they could ripen in the house. It was spitting when I picked them. A couple of hours later I looked outside and it was snowing. Not sticking on the ground at all but still, definitely, snow. Maisie is exploring the wonderful world of food. So far she's had carrots, apples, banana, yam, pear, oatmeal and a bit of mozzarella that I discovered after we probably shouldn't have given her (I don't think she actually ate any of it anyway). She can try another new food tomorrow and I'm trying to make up my mind between meat or egg. I love watching her eat. It's so fun. I started a winter sweater for her (but apparently haven't taken a picture of it yet) and discovered, very happily, that I didn't need to swatch for it because one of the swatches I made a couple of years ago for a sweater of Rob's in the same yarn is the right tension and (so smart!) I wrote all the important information on a tag and tied it to the swatch. It was so handy I'm thinking of making swatches with various needles in all my favourite yarns and keeping them in a handy box.

A couple of mornings ago Maisie and I went out into the yard with the camera. The light was just right, I could see some an interesting mushroom in the lawn, and Maisie was being a bit fussy and needed help getting to sleep (it seems there is nothing like a bit of fresh air). So I grabbed the camera and took a lot of pictures of the lawn without using the view finder. The results surprised me. Not only did the mushroom live up to expectations, the whole dewy morning landscape looks like fairies could emerge at any moment. Looking back over these I noticed that we'd even had a bit of a frost. Not a hard frost. Just enough to keep the dew around long enough for me to get out there with the camera. That potato is kind of funny: first because it's huge and second because I didn't dig it up. I don't know how it ended up on top of the soil like that. I have seen the squirrel digging in this box and all I can think is that the squirrel got it part way out (closer inspection revealed little claw marks) and the heavy rain we had a few days before did the rest. I'm going to have to write down what variety of potato I put in this year. I've had three of these huge potatoes so far and I've still got three plants to dig up.

September is a time of change any year but this year it's so much more noticeable for me. Last week Maisie was curious about food and watching us eat; this week she is chewing on pieces of carrot and banana. She's getting bigger and will outgrow some more of her pajamas soon. She's also getting really good at doing crunches and grabbing onto things on purpose. She celebrated turning six months old on Sunday by rolling onto her tummy and being happy there for a full ten minutes. I celebrated by waking up with a sore throat and developing a fever which wasn't nearly as fun and meant I had to put off some plans to met up with a friend and her son today.

We're still seeing some grackles at the feeder but now it is mostly just our squirrel. He comes to the feeder for a peanut and then runs off to hide it. I'm curious how many peanut are hidden in my garden pots. I know for sure he's also burying them in the potato box. Abby and Ollie and Maisie have a great time watching him run back and forth across the deck. Every so often he changes his route and runs down the side of the house instead of the back steps and there is much scurrying to get to the appropriate window in time to see him go by.

September makes me want to make. I made biscuits inspired by welsh cakes (which just means I added currents and nutmeg) for my lunch one day last week and had the leftovers for breakfast the next morning. I made a slight variation on fairy bread with a spare hot dog bun on evening just for fun (by the way I love hot dog buns - they're so soft and sweet and just so good). A friend in my knitting group is recently back from a year in New Zealand and was telling us about some of the different foods they make there. There has been a little more knitting. My Ravelry notebook shows 18 works-in-progress! I really need to work more on getting things finished and less on getting them started. Especially before the yarn for Maisie's winter sweater arrives. I made a little pair of pants for Maisie. I used Rae's basic newborn pants pattern. She says they have a lot of ease so I figured I could make them up as is and see where I need to adjust things to make them Maisie sized. It looks like they mostly just need a bit of length in the leg and maybe a smidge in the rise. Maisie was pretty thrilled about them when I tried them on  her - lots of wiggles and smiles.

My mum came over this afternoon and went for a walk with us. I took the big camera along and got her to take a picture of me, Maisie and Abby the way we usually look when we're out for a walk. We'll have to do it again in the winter. I managed to take a picture of the fireweed along part of the path. I've been admiring it all summer through its different phases. I think I might like the fall colours the best.