I saw this social media post with a haiku plus 3 syllables, and it inspired me to take action:
Photo taken from a social media post about writing poems
My Response to the Leaf Writer
I did what you said
I found leaves and rocks, penned verse,
left for others to
discover….
We were camping at FD Roosevelt State Park in Pine Mountain, Georgia, and the leaves are starting to change. I found an assortment of leaves and rocks and took the advice from the
post.
Mary Oliver verse on a rock
This writing on the rocks makes me think of my time in Asheville at the Grove Park Inn, which has been fiercely and steadily on my mind over the past week. I’ve heard much about Biltmore House, but very little is out there except for a statement that I could find on the Grove Park Inn’s website. Besides the old caged elevator and the mega-sized fireplaces with rocking chairs lined up in front of them, one of my favorite things to do at the Grove Park Inn during my visit there was walking around and reading the quotes from books etched into the rocks in the lobby. Perhaps this rock with its lines of poetry is one small way to keep the city of Asheville and its devout love of the arts close to my heart as they heal.
I do hope that The Grove Park Inn finds a way to temporarily host the National Gingerbread House Contest in November this year to another location if they are unable to have it there – which I’m sure may be next to impossible. My vote is for Atlanta, and I’d love to buy 15 tickets and bring the children and grandchildren!
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?
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!
Yesterday was my sister-in-law’s birthday, so we loaded up the family and drive to Ball Ground, Georgia for a lovely day at Gibbs Gardens. The fall festivals all over North Georgia are just beginning in their early season, so we saw splendid late summer blooms as we strolled through the grounds and admired the first peeks of pumpkins along the roads.
We even saw a water snake enjoying a nap on the grassy bank of the creek that runs through the gardens!
After lunch, we headed to Jaemor Farms for some apples and peaches. Today, we will be making apple butter, spiced apples, and peach marmalade, so we drove to the best place in Georgia to get those fresh ingredients! Seeing the pumpkins lined up and ready to decorate front porches and front yards spiked my pumpkin spice fever for the cooler weather.
Tune in tomorrow for the Kitchen Canning Episodes of the women of the Johnson Funny Farm in rural Georgia. We can’t wait to make a mess in our kitchens today! We’ll be jockeying back and forth from her farmhouse to mine as apple butter simmers in one and peach marmalade sweetens the air in the other.
But the most preserves we’ll make are the memories.
Here is the bloom calendar for the year from Gibbs Gardens. You can also see the bloom report on their website.
I’m closing today with a few pictures from our stroll through the gardens – – including an uphill walk to see the Manor House. Our moutainous climb to see this beautiful home and see the view from the top reminded us that we should have brought ibuprofen for the sore muscles and aches after such a lofty achievement.
In Stillmeadow Sampler, Gladys Taber writes through the year in chapters named for seasons. I think what I love best is the way she captures the feelings of each season with such sensory descriptions.
I’m reading the end of the summer chapter, which focuses on August. Here is where Taber gives me the hope to get through the dog days of summer:
“As August draws to a close, evenings are cool. Autumn is already in the air. The signs are small, but a country eye sees them.”
Earlier this week, I found a reddened maple leaf. Today, I squeezed a fig, and it isn’t as firm as it was a week ago. And as I listen and watch the patterns of birds, I sense change in the numbers that are here.
The stores are beginning to put their summer clothes on clearance as the fall fashions arrive, and of course the craft stores are already decked out for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I’ve resisted all temptation to break out the pumpkin candles and strike a match.
I’m on the countdown, though.
Just after Labor Day weekend, I’ll bring out the pumpkins and burlap and light a maple bourbon candle. I’ll bring out the socks, sweaters, and scarves, and change out the front door wreath. I’ll book a pedicure and choose one of those shimmery autumn colors that’ll match all the shades of leaves on the deciduous trees. And I’ll make the orange spiced tea that my mother used to make when I was young and raise my cup to the changing season!
Common Threads 