Fall

Autumn announces it's arrival when the trees give one last defiant shout before going to sleep for the winter. Today, the smell of the fallen leaves, the rain, and the scent of woodsmoke in the air inspire cooking. Butternut squash soup. Beef stews. Apple pies, and hot cider, or just baked apples drizzled with maple syrup. Gingerbread and spice cakes and bread pudding. I end up making peanut noodles for everyone for lunch. Pie will have to wait till the weekend.

But oh, do we we have the apples! On one of the last warm days of the year, we tucked the Impling into her car seat with a change of clothes, and left for greener pastures. I haven't been to an orchard since I was a child, and neither had the Hub. So we'd conveniently forgotton about things like traffic jams on narrow country roads, gigantic fields converted into parking lots, and lines of people waiting for hayrides, cider donuts, and the women's bathroom. But we gritted our teeth, and ran the gauntlet of the ticket lines, and emerged on the other side with apple bags and a map to the hedge maze and petting zoo. We crossed the road with our fellow apple pickers, and spread out so that in a matter of moments, we didn't see many people at all, but heard their voices, convivial and comfortable, through the foliage. Time seemed to slow down in the maze of the orchard. We walked on and on, searching for the trees that still bore fruit, until finally, on a steep slope overlooking scarlet and gold tipped forests, we found them.

There was the soft snap of the apples as they came free from their branches, the round weight as they settled in our hands, then the incredible crisp crunch of a just-picked Cortland, it's juice light and tart and sweet.

The Impling lounged on the slope beneath the fruit trees, happily absorbed in fitting as much apple in her mouth as was physically possible. The Impling, as you can see, has many apple pies and dumplings and crisps and crumbles in her future.

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We've also been tramping around the Arnold Arboretum for the past three Sundays. There, we peacefully coexist with fellow leaf peepers, fall-frisky dogs, and grimly exercising joggers. The lawns are still thick and lush and you would have to be seriously inhibited to not fling yourself down on it for a good roll, dog or not.


Here is a place to listen to the wind in the leaves and your
feet in the leaves. We walked though gardens of climbing plants and looked at bonsai that were started hundreds of years ago. We climbed hills and played peekaboo and watched the longs shadows fall over the wood. We breathed deeply and let the week go.

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Since fall is my favorite time of year, of course a little interior decorating is an order. Until I can summon enough time and brain cells to figure out how to get this site to look the way I want, I'll have to rely on the the template gods for fall colors. My quest for a jack-o-lantern background continues, though. And of course, with Halloween approaching, I had to change my icon per her Imperious Majesty's photo-op of the moment.

Could you refuse a command that looked like this? Didn't think so.