September is the month of change: the summer ends and the fall comes, with all the richness and warmth of its colors. It is the month of peace and comfort when we take out our fleece blankets from the wardrobe and we yearn for all things cinnamon, pumpkin, and apple. In its last days, we feel it’s spooky season already because days are shorter and the dark calls for ghosts and eerie atmospheres.

September is also the month children go back to school and families to their normal routines. There are no big holidays in sight until Thanksgiving and, in Italy, not until Christmas. In the farming world, September is one of the most important and lively months, so it wasn’t by chance that the people of Sardinia used to consider it the beginning of the year: cabudanni, “capodanno” (beginning of the year), is the name for September on the island still today.