I Love Autumn Because . . . (part one)

One day, toward the end of summer comes the day I long for each year.  It is that morning when I wake up and it just feels different.  It is the day autumn appears.  Just one sleep and a wake up is all it takes for summer to leave and autumn to arrive.  The sun has started lowering in the sky, there is a quality of light that happens at no other time of year, and the valley starts to turn to bronze and gold . .

it is a time to take advantage of gentle days, long afternoon strolls through country lanes, a bag in hand to harvest fruits and forage for our tea . . .

or stride out along the coast winding your way from cove to cove while sail boats bob on a calm blue ocean, sweeping to the horizon and beyond . .

With luck, there will be many days like this through September and into October, where the hot summer sun is tempered by the turning of the year. . and we gather in our harvest, bringing in the food that we have grown at home and foraged from the wild . .

Apples for chutney, cider, pies, and more; sloes to flavour gin to warm our hearts in the darkest depths of winter chill; blackberries, rosehips, mushrooms, and so much more . . .

. . the air is full of expectation as we prepare, gathering in the harvest of the fields and hedgerows, for the lean months of Winter ahead.  Kitchens are full of fragrant smells of jams and jellies, chutneys and pickles, as all sorts of preserves are lovingly put up and stored to feed us when the ground is hard with frost and we huddle in front of our fires as the wind chills the air outside our cottages and castles . .

Fields, full of golden ripened grain with combine harvesters and tractors cutting to bring the harvest home; but they will be home to the migrating birds of the wild northern lands, fleeing from the biting cold of a foreign winter, foraging to feed from seed we missed and left behind. 




The plaintive drone of engines as they slowly crawl from field to farm remind me that the days ahead now shorten quickly into night and so begins the season of my favourite celebrations with Hallowe'en, Bonfire Night, and Harvest Thanksgiving.

bonfires blaze and smoulder, filling the air with smoke from burning leaves . . and conkers fallen to the ground for conker fights in playgrounds out across the land . . .