Tag: autumn

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A World With Octobers and Morning Coffee at F. D. Roosevelt State Park

“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” – Anne Shirley,

from L.M. Montgomery’s 1908 classic novel Anne of Green Gables

Fall is, without any close seasonal competition, my favorite time of year. It’s cool but not cold, warm but not hot, and unlike springtime, there are fewer allergens and no pollen blanketing everything outdoors. And there is also no mad rush for holiday preparation, either. Don’t get me wrong – – I do enjoy holidays, but fall brings the peace before the chaos, the calm before the storm of Christmas shopping, baking, and gatherings. The dogs are still content and settled, not yet stirred up in all the changes in routine and visitors.

And the leaves. Nature’s masterpiece has matured from her springtime buds, ripened to her full bloom in the summer, and in fall has crisped to all the gorgeous shades of an artist’s palette. It’s stunning to step outside and look to a valley resplendent with fall colors for miles in every direction from the top of a mountain.

That’s why we love camping at F. D. Roosevelt State Park so much. It’s at the tip top of Pine Mountain, less than an hour west from home but feels like it’s a long way off, and the mountain gives us a taste of North Georgia without actually being there. This morning, it’s 45 degrees out, and that sweater weather I’ve been craving has surpassed the mark and gone to sturdy jacket weather for the first dog peeing window of the morning. You can still smell the smoke from last night’s campfires in the air and on your clothes, see the acorns someone before you left on the picnic table for you to enjoy, and feel the stirrings of cold wind brush your cheek and send leaves swirling to the ground all around you. Fellow dog walkers are out with their own camping dogs, and early birds are preparing to cook breakfast. Soon there will be the smell of bacon sizzling in every direction. For now, though, my coffee is brewing and its rich aroma greets me like the welcoming home of a family member from an it’s-been-too-long scolding. I’ll step inside and finish morning prayers a few hundred feet closer to heaven today than I am at home, in location and in mindset.

In a few minutes, I’ll slice fresh baked pumpkin bread and share a bite with three tiny waggy tail patient waiters with perked up ears and the cutest cocked heads, a trio of rescues who have never ever committed a single wrong in their entire lives and never will, if you ask them. One is on his first camping trip – maybe ever – but at least in the Wayfarer with us. He’s still learning how all this works, and the good Lord allowed him a quick lesson that putting his nose in my piping hot coffee cup and trying to steal a quick taste has its own consequence.

A while later, I’ll build a fire and cuddle up under a blanket in the padded chair to read out by the warmth where life is buzzing with relaxed morning enjoyment by the good-spirited folks who walk past in wrinkled flannel shirts and one-notch-above-pajama pants but way short of a matching sweatsuit, further still from social attire required anywhere but on a campground, everyone’s hair still tousled from last night and holding a dog leash in one hand and a coffee cup in the other. I’m going back and forth between Road Trip by Mary Kay Andrews and two of my favorite memoir-ish country living volumes by Gladys Taber: Especially Dogs and Stillmeadow Road. A good while after that, in between walking dogs and birdwatching with Merlin at the helm and pimento cheese sandwiches and few games of computer mahjong, I’ll change into actual blue jeans and bring out the real tiles and racks and light an apple cider candle while I play a couple of hands of Messy.

Camping days in the

fall are the best days of all

with a stacked woodpile

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October Tricube

I love writing tricubes! In a tricube poem, there are three stanzas. Each stanza has three lines. Each line has three syllables. The rhyme scheme is a,b,c,a,b,c,a,b,c. Try your own today, and feel the fun of writing a poem!

mist veil floats
home fires burn
witches' hats

eerie notes
tree leaves turn
sleek black cats

sweater coats
earthlings learn
vampire bats
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Exhaustion

exhaustion sets in

unlike little cat feet fog

more like lion paws

I’m exhausted. Fall break begins today, and I’m ready for a rest.

I’ll travel to Kentucky for my daughter’s baby shower and spend time with her the first part of the week, perhaps doing some light hiking in her favorite state park and helping them find things for their new home. Then, I’ll come home and attend a book discussion group on Weyward by Emilie Hart and work on my writing deadlines for the book my writing group has coming out in 2025.

Normally, I don’t count minutes at work. I’m not a clock watcher for any other reason than being on time for meetings and deadlines.

Today is different. I’m ready to give my mind a break and enjoy some cooler temperatures in northern Kentucky. I’m ready to see some leaves changing color and feel the breeze nipping enough to make me zip my jacket.

I’m ready to rest.

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Fall Bucket List

my fall bucket list:

cinnamon-honey butter

for breakfast bagels

next I’ll knit a warm wool hat

after that, I’ll brew clove tea

then I’ll buy a pear candle

and snuggle our dogs

just them and me

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A Tree’s Season

All the breathtaking charm of the autumn season stops me in my tracks sometimes and fills my heart with the feel of cozy togetherness and reprioritizes my focus on the simple things. The cool breeze, the warmth of a fire, the flicker of candles flavoring the air, the cinnamon and nutmeg spiciness I add to my morning coffee, the softness of the quilts piled one, then two, then three thick on our bed to bring all the hygge comforts, and even my favorite sherpa-lined slippers for scuffing about the house and for porch sitting.

I began taking pictures of a tree on our farm in September here in rural Georgia so I could see the changes over the time span of a month or so. It’s one of my favorite views from my seat on the front porch, a place of birdwatching and reading, of talking and sipping a cup of hot tea at the end of the day, of phone conversations and FaceTimes with children and grandchildren across the miles, of prayer and meditation, of writing.

I’ve always wondered what they would say “if these trees could talk,” and perhaps in this modern age of AI, even the trees will start communicating with us and each other. If they do, this is the tree that would someday tell my story better than any other tree of my middle-age years.

Please meet my faithful friend in these photographs. She reminds me that cleaning out, renewing, and regenerating in a new and different season is a blessing and a lovely way to grow. And that every season is one to celebrate.

Thanks for reading today! I’m raising a mug of hot apple cider to you and waving my scarf in knitted kinship!

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Autumn Walk

I had a meeting in our local coffee shop yesterday and treated myself to a Hex Latte while projecting next year’s budget and goals with a community partner. From inside, the vintage paned windows make the outside world look a little bit like a dripping realistic painting – the kind of windows that have candles and snowdrifts in the winter and don’t have 20/20 sharp focus. It’s like I’m in a world of my own in there.

I confess: I was.

I had a moment, looking across the town square, when a brilliant flash of fall colors caught my eye. “I’m walking this square when I leave here. I’m sharing these pictures with others – this Hallmark Movie charm this time of year is too beautiful to keep all to myself,” I decided, right then and there in the middle of a business meeting.

We finished. I walked along, thinking in Haiku, as I mostly do. Here is part of my walk that I’m sharing with you:

charming small town vibes

fall displays on courthouse square

spiced chills in crisp air

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It’s That Time of Year

Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers for hosting Slice of Life for writers!

It’s that time of year – not just the time of buying hot chocolate bombs and pumpkin spice bagels and cream cheese and coffee creamer and basically pumpkin spice everything. Not just the time of lighting fragrant fall candles and making caramel apples and buying cinnamon brooms to prop on the hearth. Not just the time of putting leaf garland and mums all around the mailbox, and not just the time of getting down the sweatshirts and cabin socks to sit around the fire pit getting lost in the aroma of burning wood.

There’s so much more to that time of year.

It’s Hallmark movie time.

Last week alone, I watched Pumpkin Everything, Pumpkin Pie Wars, Autumn in the City, Under the Autumn Moon, and Home for Harvest. It was my fall break, and I succumbed to the temptation to multitask by watching movies while cleaning. It was the perfect marriage – I was productive enough not to feel guilty, but indulgent enough not to feel overworked.

I tolerate the teasing from my husband, who rolls his eyes every time I push play on a different movie. He finds it amusing that I enjoy watching the same basic plot with different settings and characters from fall to winter. I find it amusing that while he teases me about it, he never fails to be drawn into the story and ends up watching most of the movie with me. And this year, I’ve even started adding secret incentives that he hasn’t quite figured out yet – – like setting out caramel popcorn on the coffee table so he’ll start watching more from the beginning.

I’m pretty sure Hallmark movies make me a nicer person. I go out into the world wanting to smile more and seek joy lurking around the corners of my town square. I can hear movie music in my head as I walk over to the coffee shop and the bookstore from work, and I start admiring all the scarves and boots I see people wearing. I smell balsam and cedar and feel all the excitement of the season ahead.

If you haven’t marked your calendar yet, here’s the 2023 Hallmark Movie Countdown Calendar. The countdown begins this weekend – October 20th, which is also the National Day on Writing. You can download the calendar and also the movie checklist app, and check out the details of each of the new movies.

I’m trying to decide which will be my favorite. I think I’m looking most forward to A Biltmore Christmas. What do you predict will be your favorite, and what are your best movie watching traditions?

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Moments of Peace in Nature from Sunday, October 15

I return to work this morning after a quiet, uneventful fall break. We’re having an emergency drill today, so the inner peace will not fade throughout the work week but instead will be pumped out as adrenaline and action and what ifs replace the echoes of birdsong and back porch swing chains. My brother and his girlfriend came to visit, we arranged some furniture to make room for a few new pieces from my dad’s house, and we sat outdoors by the fire pit, roasting marshmallows and talking into the night.

As I was taking the dogs out for their final evening walk one night, I did what I always do – – I shone the flashlight all along the edge of the woods to see if there were any eyes shining back at me. Out here, we have everything from coyotes to field mice, and I’ve learned that I can never be too careful.

Sure enough, there was a tiny pair of eyes looking at me, about fox height. It had a black, bushy tail with a triangular-shaped face. We had a stare-down for a full minute at least before the animal disappeared around the tree, its tail curving along the trunk as it slunk off into the forest.

I walked the dogs, thinking it was gone, and mentioned it to my brother when I came back inside.

“Really?” he asked. “Let’s go check it out.”

I grabbed the light and off we went, back to the tree, where the two eyes sat just a foot behind it, shining back at us. The brush was thick, so we stared at it for a few minutes trying to figure out what it was before it hopped off through the dense thicket and went on its way.

I Googled and concluded that it may have been an oddly-shaped fox squirrel. We’ve had a black squirrel for a long time on this farm, and perhaps this was the great great grandson or something.

The shape of that head, though, perplexed me. I kept returning to the idea that it wasn’t a squirrel when it hit me: it might have been a skunk.

Just like my brother and me to chase a stripeless skunk into the woods, but I think that’s what happened.

If I’d had any doubt, my husband took the dogs out early yesterday and returned to bed, noting, “There’s a slight skunk smell out there.” I hadn’t told him that I had toyed with the idea that this had been a skunk.

Now I’m sure of it.

Skunks, dogs, birds, fireside pits, porch swings, and Hallmark movies all week- – and today I leave you with photos of peace taken last week. Happy Monday!

Leaves are turning, becoming more colorful by the day in my county.
A pair of finches on the roof
A pair of cardinals in the tree
A tufted titmouse scratching an itch
tufted titmouse
pine warbler
pine warbler
A tufted titmouse takes flight
I’m photographing this tree as it loses its leaves, every few days, so I can see the change shot by shot
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Falling for Nature

In recent days leading up to the first day of fall, I’ve been intentional about getting out and soaking up some nature time – driving, walking, sitting to just observe and appreciate the beauty of where we live and celebrate the changing season. My friend Margaret Simon commented this past week that she’d noticed many were lamenting the end of summer while I was heralding the onset of fall, and she inspired me to share some of the reasons I could live in the world of autumn year-round.

Ours is a small, rural county in middle Georgia with huge orange sunsets that dip down between the rolling hills, nuzzling down into an heirloom quilt for a good night’s sleep. Sometimes, we are “those people” who really do take Sunday afternoon drives with nowhere to have to be and no time to have to be there – just so we can take it all in!

A family of deer come along their path daily, walking along the edge of the trees. Their darker winter coats are starting to come in, and the babies are losing the last of their spots.

Mushrooms are growing along the rocks, and leaves are dropping in shades of red and yellow from the trees, spinning down to blanket the ground.

And spiders are becoming more plentiful – the big ones, spinning webs between trees, setting traps for unsuspecting prey. Somehow, they give off a Halloweenish vibe, especially as our resident bats circle overhead in the evenings.

The most hopeful time happens as the day begins when the sun is rising and the light infiltrates the trees, pounding down on the grass like a warmed oatmeal breakfast with a multivitamin and a glass of orange juice, turning on the light, greeting us all with an enthusiastic “Good Morning!” as it peels back the covers of night.

Redbirds lurk and loiter, running off the last of the small songbirds from the feeders as they migrate south. They’ve already laid claim to the feeders that will get them through the freezing winter ahead.

Monarchs and Black Swallowtails feast on the last remnants of the withered figs.

Fish Crow

The American Crows and the Fish Crows, too, become more abundant. They sit on church steeples, thanking their maker for a reprieve from the brutal heat of the summer. Their caws stir in a dash of Poe.

Our pair of Great Horned Owls was visiting every night, but now they are in a different spot on the west side of the farm. We can still hear them, but they haven’t made themselves evident lately.

Even if I only spend ten minutes each day outdoors, I notice the small changes that are happening around me and feel grateful to be able to admire the transition from summer to fall. I’m choosing a tree this year to photograph every 5 days so that I can see the change as a time lapse once the leaves have all let go and the summer-to-winter transformation is complete. I can learn much from trees that shed worn leaves and bloom again fresh in the spring.

I take pictures and count the blessings of each magnificent and microscopic moment of beauty. How do you celebrate the changes as fall approaches? I’d love to hear all the ways we welcome the season!

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First Day of Fall

We dozed with open

windows to let the first whiffs

of fall fill us full

welcome, Great Pumpkin!

welcome all scents of pumpkin spice!

bring on the sweaters!