Lyrics courtesy of Pete Seger, The Byrds, and Ecclesiastes 3, verses 1-8. I think I covered all the bases there.
The picture is of autumn in North Georgia.
Fall is finally coming to south Georgia. How do I know? Well, I haven't been running the air conditioner for the last three days. The highs here have only been in the low 80's (that's upper 20's to you Celsius types), which is almost twenty degrees cooler than it is in the summer.
It's so nice to have the windows open during the day, and into the evening. It's so nice to get up early and open the windows and feel all of that cool, fresh air fill the house. It's so nice when the overnight low, is actually, well...low.
Fall is the one thing I really miss about living up north: that cool crisp air, the bright colours filling the trees, being able to wear a jacket in the morning, and short sleeves in the afternoon.
I can't help but laugh at the Yankees who have moved down here, and try to "autumn up" their homes in late August. They buy wreaths made of artificial fall coloured leaves, they try planting mums long before they can tolerate the heat. They put out little pumpkins and gourds harvested from up north, that always end up rotting out long before Halloween or Thanksgiving. A neighbour put out a couple of square hay bales on her lawn, and then was aghast to find it crawling with bugs and spiders eating the bugs just a few days later. And of course, her lawn underneath was dead.
But the last few days have actually felt a bit like fall. I can almost imagine drinking warm apple cider and eating cinnamon-sugar covered doughnuts at the cider mill, bringing home bushels of Michigan apples all ready to make a pie. The leaves have even started to turn on some of our early maples here. We generally don't get a magnificent display of colour this far south. Usually, the leaves just turn brown, and cling to their limbs until a winter wind blows them away. But, here and there, I'm glimpsing little breaks of russet gold amidst the green of our pines, and it gives me hope. Hope for what I'm not really sure. Maybe just hope for some fresh warm apple cider and a doughnut.
10 comments:
It's not really fall here yet in mid MI. The temps here this week have been in the upper 70's, low 80's and the woods have not started to turn color yet.
However signs of fall are all over. The corn & soybean fields are all drying up. The local highschool football scores dominate the sports sections. Pumpkins, gourds and indian corn can be found everywhere, and last but not least, deer blinds are popping up.
It's not fall here in west MI either. But ditto on the corn fields, and football. And deer blinds. Don't know about Canada and Georgia, but the opening of deer season (Nov. 15th) is an unofficial national holiday here. But we are getting some colors starting already and I'm long for some cooler weather so I can put out pumpkins and mums. Do you miss the snow too? I would!
We're getting just the tiniest bit of leaf color change here in northeast Kansas. Unfortunately, one of my favorite fall things - apple picking - won't be happening this year, since a late ice frost killed the entire crop. Normally we come home with bushels and the house smells like pie and apple butter and drying apples for days.
For a girl originally from Michigan, I don't remember ever being there in the fall, only the summer. I like the change of season here.
auntie barbie I saw wild turkeys today on my way home from taking TFYO to school. Had a little adventure, and I'll write about it more tomorrow. Football is huge here as well, with a big cross county rivalry. I can't stand it.
pixelpi I've seen you over at RC's, thanks for dropping by! Deer season starts late October, I think, but we're not hunters, so I don't know. I miss looking at snow, and playing in snow. But after a couple of weeks, I'm ready for it to be over. I don't miss shovelling it, clearing it, brushing it off the car, or looking at it for four months. Where in western MI are you? I went to Western Michigan University.
RCMMMMM, apple pie. Although, my favourite is apple crisp, with that lovely oatmeal crunchy topping. Most of the apples we've got right now are from Chile, but I may just have to do some baking now!
Hey Jen. I'll send you the bestest apple crisp recipe later today.. after I bake it, of course!
It's the memories of smell that trigger other memories of fall when I was very young. The baking and canning of my grandmothers, the slight chill in the air at night that you could feel and smell, the warmth of an old console radio with glowing glass bottles that gave a comforting warm dusty odour in the fall air. The change in the smell of the trees as the colours changed, and the smell of slowly burning leaves at the curb of a street paved with bricks. The smell of Great Lakes would change in the fall and even the feel of them would seem to heighten one's senses. I still miss these things.
Mmm apple pie, cocoa by the fire.
I crunched through my first pile of leaves today (with my feet.)
They were crisp and golden and huddled from the cool breeze against a wall.
I love autumn.
The seasons here are probably more like yours. Fall really happens sometime between late October and early December when the liquid amber and a few other trees change color. I live for it. In the meantime, it has cooled off here considerably as well and is in the 80s, cool at night which I need. Snow, oh, I do miss it. I think I've said before how I feel I deprived my children of one of the most precious things in life - a snow day! Nature's mental health day.
(Said in your best Homer Simpson) Mmmmmmmmmm. Dooooooonuts.
We're just starting to get fall colors here. Had one night of frost but now a lovely Indian summer with warm days and cool nights. My mums are starting to bloom and the corn is getting brown.
Jen: I live in Grand Rapids, not that far from K'zoo. Now I'm wondering where RC lived in Michigan and where auntie barbie lives. We may need to have some kind of caucus or something.
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