A day of running around today: making produce deliveries, picking up equipment from the repair shop, keeping the crew on point and hustling, trying to keep on point and hustling myself. Moving from task to task, I kept passing the big flower bed along the west side of the barn. Back in June I planted it full of old-fashioned annuals like zinnias and four-o-clocks and bachelor buttons, and all are now in glorious full bloom. On one pass by, how the flowers were full of bees caught my eye. One big bee I noticed in particular, weighed down with pollen and working its way around the inside edge of a tall, lemon-yellow sunflower along the back of the bed. Hustling in its own bee-like way, gathering its stores before the winter winds blow.

That’s September in a nutshell, I thought later. Here we are, smack dab in the middle of Michigan’s glory, autumn bursting through with late-season light and color. And here I am, hustling through it, with the heavy harvests of fall before me and winter’s wind at my back. Does the bee attend to the flower’s beauty as it works its way through the day? Do I?