MY FAVORITE TIME OF YEAR
My favorite time of the year is almost upon us! Autumn in all its glorious splendor will be here (according to the calendar) on September 22nd at 10:29pm EDT! (Learn more about the Autumnal Equinox and other fall related things here: http://www.almanac.com/content/first-day-fall-autumnal-equinox) Yay!!! I love the colors, I love the smells, I love the sounds of crunching leaves beneath my feet! I love the cool (or even cold) nights and warm days! I love apple picking, apple cider, apple pie and apple crisp! I love the mist rising off of ponds and lakes in the early morning, adorning all the flowers & spider webs with diamonds! I love the crystal clear air of some days and the golden haze of others! Picking pumpkins and mums for my porch stoop! Wearing sweaters and long sleeves again! I wear an autumn pallet year round but mostly in the fall: rich rusts, deep maroons, dusky reds, warm browns, with touches of yellow, gold, wine, purple and green. (Think these colors in lighter shades for spring and summer!) Even when I wear blue it is usually a warm hue, more like a sky blue, and we all know that sky blue goes with everything!
One of the things I love to do in this “not really summer anymore but not quite fall” time is to go over to our Community Gardens to photograph all the sunflowers. Everything from the giant Russian to the tall, but small bloomed wild ones. Many of the gardeners plant sunflowers of all colors, sizes and heights and there are also ‘volunteer’ plants around the edges that pop up on their own from all the ones that dropped seed in years past. Our fall blooming wild sunflower is a very tall variety with small flowers, called Jerusalem Artichoke or Helianthus tuberosus and it also grows in abundance around the Community Gardens as well as many other places around Horn Pond. If you go early in the morning or early evening you will see a great variety of birds hanging off of the sunflower heads that have already set seed. And of course wild asters are blooming now, also. Everything from the deep purple New England Wild Aster to the myriad white asters.
I’m doing something new this fall! I will be joining friends & family at the Highland Games in Lincoln, NH on September 20th. I’ve never been before but I hear it is a fascinating time with many things to see and do and lots of music (think bagpipes and drums)! I am wondering if the foliage will have started to turn up there in the White Mountains. If so, I can start MY Autumnal journey a little early this year!
There are some great quotes are about Autumn! Here are some of the best:
“I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
~ L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
“Autumn...the year's last, loveliest smile.”
~ William Cullen Bryant
“I was drinking in the surroundings: air so crisp you could snap it with your fingers and greens in every lush shade imaginable offset by autumnal flashes of red and yellow.”
~ Wendy Delsol, Stork
“The tints of autumn...a mighty flower garden blossoming under the spell of the enchanter, frost.”
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
“It was a beautiful bright autumn day, with air like cider and a sky so blue you could drown in it.”
~ Diana Gabaldon, Outlander
And my very favorites:
“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."
~ George Eliot
“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”
~ Albert Camus
One of the things I love to do in this “not really summer anymore but not quite fall” time is to go over to our Community Gardens to photograph all the sunflowers. Everything from the giant Russian to the tall, but small bloomed wild ones. Many of the gardeners plant sunflowers of all colors, sizes and heights and there are also ‘volunteer’ plants around the edges that pop up on their own from all the ones that dropped seed in years past. Our fall blooming wild sunflower is a very tall variety with small flowers, called Jerusalem Artichoke or Helianthus tuberosus and it also grows in abundance around the Community Gardens as well as many other places around Horn Pond. If you go early in the morning or early evening you will see a great variety of birds hanging off of the sunflower heads that have already set seed. And of course wild asters are blooming now, also. Everything from the deep purple New England Wild Aster to the myriad white asters.
I’m doing something new this fall! I will be joining friends & family at the Highland Games in Lincoln, NH on September 20th. I’ve never been before but I hear it is a fascinating time with many things to see and do and lots of music (think bagpipes and drums)! I am wondering if the foliage will have started to turn up there in the White Mountains. If so, I can start MY Autumnal journey a little early this year!
There are some great quotes are about Autumn! Here are some of the best:
“I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
~ L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
“Autumn...the year's last, loveliest smile.”
~ William Cullen Bryant
“I was drinking in the surroundings: air so crisp you could snap it with your fingers and greens in every lush shade imaginable offset by autumnal flashes of red and yellow.”
~ Wendy Delsol, Stork
“The tints of autumn...a mighty flower garden blossoming under the spell of the enchanter, frost.”
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
“It was a beautiful bright autumn day, with air like cider and a sky so blue you could drown in it.”
~ Diana Gabaldon, Outlander
And my very favorites:
“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."
~ George Eliot
“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”
~ Albert Camus