Tag Archives: pumpkins

October beauties

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Where did October go? I blinked, and it’s already almost gone.

Fall is putting on a beautiful display here, and the rains have returned. The salmon are back, and the vultures along with them. Where there were one or two vultures flying around at the river a couple of weeks ago, now a dozen or so try to fit into the same tree at one time. Not beautiful. But important.

The trees have turned showy with the shorter days and cooling temperatures.

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Pumpkins dot front porches, and children run past in partial costumes, preparing for Monday’s trick-or-treating.

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Summer hasn’t quite loosened its grip, though. Recent rains and my deadheading efforts a month ago have resulted in one final crop of rose blooms. I wish you could smell the perfect fragrance of this rose:

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The last few buds promise to welcome November, but they’ll be gone long before December arrives.

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Whether summer pinks or autumn oranges, October has its share of beauties.

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I hope you’re able to get outside and enjoy what’s left of the month. We have more rain in the forecast here, a blessing for sure, but also one that keeps my camera and me indoors more than I’d like. (I’m fortunate, at least, to have a dog who doesn’t mind trooping around in the rain. She’s a lot tougher than the camera.)

It’s good to know that November will bring its own kind of beauty when it arrives. I look forward to sharing some of it here with you in the coming weeks.

Pumpkin mania

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The brave woman stood at the temporary sink, surrounded by children holding small pumpkins to rinse off and take home. Was she a teacher? A parent? A courageous volunteer taking part in an elementary school field trip to a pumpkin patch?

I didn’t stop to ask but drove carefully past the cluster of children and their pumpkins. I had come to the pumpkin patch because of nostalgia.

Driving through rural Virginia a few weekends ago, my husband and I passed several fields dotted with pumpkins. Those fields made me long for a proper pumpkin patch, and my bare porch begged for a few pumpkins. So I took my own field trip yesterday, a solo visit to a pumpkin “farm,” really a patch where someone else had already done the picking.

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Pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere

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Cinderella’s stagecoach in the background?

I wandered around, taking pictures, enjoying the laughter of parents and children as they picked out their perfect pumpkins. I thought of Linus falling asleep in the pumpkin patch, waiting and hoping for the Great Pumpkin’s arrival. I kept my eyes open for the best pumpkins.

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Someone had fun decorating old farm equipment for the season.

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A wheelbarrow-full assortment of pumpkins and gourds

Even though the pumpkins had not grown right here, the working farm couldn’t have been too far away. There were a few goats resting in a pen, and several chickens scrambled around the pumpkin yard, frazzled by gleeful children yelling, “Mooooom! I want to catch the chicken! Chick! En! Catch the chick-en!”

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Can you spot the chicken in this picture?

I guess by this point in pumpkin season, the chickens are ready for Halloween to come and go. They’ve also either gotten in some good sprint training or have found their own favorite hidey holes at the pumpkin patch.

Have you been to the pumpkin patch, farmers’ market or local grocery store to stock up on pumpkins? If not, there’s still time. The pumpkins (and the wagons) are waiting.

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Our porch is no longer bare. We’re almost ready for trick-or-treaters (there’s candy still to buy).

This year will be a very different sort of Halloween for us. We’ve moved from a neighborhood with 60+ school-age children to one that has maybe four or five who are still the right age to trick-or-treat. At least there will be some pumpkin cheer on our porch to let the neighborhood kids know to stop by our house for treats. And the adults have already gotten into the Halloween spirit, leaving secret gifts at each others’ doors and putting up signs to say we have been “boo’d.”

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A happy front porch, graced with pumpkins and a spattering of rain

We’ll keep our pumpkins as Thanksgiving decorations, but I always feel a bit odd about not carving a jack-o-lantern. My dad always carved one for us growing up, and maybe that’s part of the nostalgia that won’t let me skip buying pumpkins each Halloween.

How about you? Do you carve jack-o-lanterns—either simple or elaborate? Or do you keep your pumpkins whole to double as Thanksgiving decorations? What other ways do you, your family and your neighbors like to celebrate Halloween? However you celebrate, let me wish you and yours a very happy Halloween!

Fall favorites

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My favorite season begins today.

I’m not sure what a typical autumn looks like here in California, but with the extreme drought, I am sure this is no typical year. I long for the crisp days and bright colors of leaves turning on the trees. To be honest, though, I’m really praying for rain and trees that can survive after this long, hot summer.

A friend back east posted a picture on Facebook yesterday of one of my favorite trees just beginning to turn. I don’t just mean favorite kind of tree. This tree is one of my favorite individual trees. When I saw my friend’s status update, I felt joy and a pang of homesickness at the same time.

I photograph this tree every fall, and each year, I’m grateful it has stood another year. To me, this tree is grace, strength, beauty, endurance.

I photographed it last fall on a quiet, foggy morning:

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I may not get to visit it this year before the leaves are all gone, but in the meantime, I’ll enjoy the photos friends post of it as it transforms into its most glorious orange color.

Do you have a favorite tree in fall? What other signs of fall do you enjoy? Pumpkins? Hot chocolate? Sweaters? Chilly nights? Football? Would you share them below?

Whatever brings you joy this season, let me wish you a happy fall full of those things.

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Falling leaves and felling trees

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As you probably know by now (especially if you saw yesterday’s post), I’m excited about the start of Autumn. So, let me wish you a very happy season! (And for those of you reading from the other side of the equator, happy spring!)

I love this time of year when cooler weather returns. Where I live, cooler weather has come along with cold, steady rain. I won’t complain, but after a few dreary days in a row, I’m looking forward to a clear weekend that includes sunshine without the heat of summer tagging along.

Falling leaves
The only leaves that have fallen so far dried in the late summer heat. Most leaves are still green, although I’ve noticed a few with just a hint of red to them. Giddiness! That tinge of red makes me giddy.

What makes me a little less giddy is the knowledge of the coming onslaught of falling leaves. We have lots of trees in our yard, and while I wouldn’t trade them for anything, that means lots of raking soon. And with our house on the market, my husband and I will have to tackle that chore more often to keep the yard looking tidy and inviting. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have a yard without so many trees and therefore so many leaves to clear in the fall.

Felling trees
I’m grateful that our home’s builder decided to leave so many trees in our yard. So many developers in our area clear out beautiful old growth trees to make construction easier. It strikes me as a lack of imagination or vision to clear everything away.

Near my neighborhood, a developer has just begun clearing land. Whether the final result will be new homes or offices, I don’t know. What I do know is that the usual peace has been drowned with constant machinery chewing up a forest of trees.

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Where there were trees …

Now there is mud and debris where once so many trees grew, an ugly scar where there was once so much natural beauty. I’m sad to see them all go, and I feel bad for the neighbors whose houses back up to this property, especially those who didn’t realize this development was coming soon to their backyard.

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Small tree protection areas such as this one make me cringe.

I’m relieved to see a few spindly trees with the orange protection fence around them. Even those may not survive, given the small area protected and the heavy machinery that can damage the trees’ roots growing outside of the protected zone, but at least there’s some attempt to save a few of the trees.

Maybe the developer plans to plant new trees once the buildings are done, and maybe someday this space can be beautiful again. It may be years, though, before this space experiences a beautiful Autumn again.

Without trees, could Fall be as beautiful? I don’t think so. A pumpkin spice latte and a burgundy scarf are fun, but nothing can trump (for me anyway) nature’s color palette this time of year.

Aside from the trees and the aforementioned latte and scarf, I love the crisp feel of the air, the clear sky, football, happier morning runs, the pumpkin patches and kids searching for the perfect jack-o-lantern pumpkin, pie, apples, Halloween, …

So what do you love most about Autumn? I know it’s not everyone’s favorite season, but there must be something for everyone to love about this time of year. So let’s hear it. What makes you giddy about this new season?

P.S. I learned something new today and wanted to be sure to share it with you. Google keeps an archive of its doodles. So if you missed one (like yesterday’s) that everyone at the office was talking about, you can browse through them to your heart’s content. The archive also provides a great way to see what the rest of the world is celebrating.

October’s colors: orange and … pink?

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Let me begin by saying that my prayers are with all of you who have been affected by Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath. For those who want to help with recovery efforts, the American Red Cross is a great place to start.

October’s colors
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the colors of October. It’s hard to get through the month without seeing a lot of orange and black as we begin our preparations for Halloween. But these days, it’s hard to go without seeing a lot of pink everywhere, too.

I’m grateful that there are organizations raising money for research to defeat this illness. I’ve known too many who have lost friends, sisters, wives, mothers to this disease. You probably can list too many names of your own.

Everyone seems to be getting in on the breast cancer awareness act, and I worry a bit about pink ribbon weariness. Komen races/walks popped up all over the country to celebrate October as breast cancer awareness month. At least one recent NASCAR race had a pink stripe painted on the inside edge of the track (don’t ask me how I know this). Delta’s flight attendants wore pink shirts and served pink lemonade for a donation. I even saw a Delta plane tug on the tarmac painted pink. At the gym today, I saw someone carrying around a pink-ribboned Evian water bottle. Like I said, pink everywhere.

For me, seeing pink everywhere complicated my emotions, and I struggled with a rising anger over all the pink. I was being selfish, because of what I was facing in my own life this month. The second week of October, I went for an annual mammogram. Continue reading →