Sunday Morning Sunshine: The Beauty of Autumn

 Remember how fun it was to find acorns?

Squirrels really enjoy them.

A long winter's day food supply!

Who doesn't enjoy apples, 

one of the top best fruits!

That includes applesauce, apple butter, apple cider.

Yum! 

Who hasn't plunged into a carefully raked-up pile of colorful leaves?

The fun!

The excitement! 

Grownups who are, for a few moments,

reliving their childhood activities!

The bonfires where we enjoyed

the not-so-good-for-you hotdogs.

Where family and friends gathered to laugh,

share stories and sit quietly pondering life.

It will be over this year soon in just a few more short days.

Enjoy revisiting these memories or...

create your own. 

2021 Autumn will be gone before we know it! 

Sunday Morning Sunshine: September Harvest

A reaping from your planting

A time of plenty

A time of blessing

A time for thankfulness and praise!

Sunday Sundshine: A Picture of Havest

Remember that old, old song "Harvest Time"

What's your caption for this picture?

Monday Morning Gratitudes

October's blessings:

1.  Leaves of color to spread on a table, to use for a school project, to line a plate, to use in a craft to walk in

2.  Cool air to fan rosy warm cheeks from the afternoon sunrays.

3.  Pumpkins to decorate, carve, set on porches and on hearths, eat.

4.  Sounds: the wind blowing promising October's rain, geese calling their friends to join them in their journey south, wherever that might be, leaves crunching on the soft moist earth, lawnmowers gobbling up the last of the grasses who dared grow an inch above where wanted, rain tapping on windows

5.  Smells: pumpkin pies, scented candles, straw bales on porches and barns, smoke from bonfires, apple pies, and apples' crisp smells


Go a little wild this October.
Breathe a little deeper.
Open your eyes wider.
Trust a little more.
Enjoy this month, this week, this day!

Blessings!

More Poem Fun

After Apple Picking
by Robert Frost

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still.
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples; I am drowsing off.
I cannot shake the shimmer from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the water-trough,
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and reappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
And I keep hearing from the cellar-bin
That rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking; I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall,
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised, or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

Quote:

Become so wrapped up in something that you forget to be afraid. --Lady Bird Johnson

Blessings!

An Apple in October . . .

To appreciate the wild and sharp flavors
of these October fruits,
it is necessary
that you be breathing the sharp
October or November air.
What is sour in the
house a bracing walk makes sweet.

Some of these apples might be labeled,
“To be eaten in the wind.”
It takes a savage or wild taste to appreciate a wild
fruit. . . The era of the Wild Apple will soon be past.
It is a fruit which will
probably become extinct in New England.
I fear that he who walks over these
fields a century hence will not know
the pleasure of knocking off wild apples.
Ah, poor soul, there are many pleasures
which you will not know! . . . the end
of it all will be that we shall be compelled
to look for our apples in a barrel.
- Henry David Thoreau

A wild apple.

What is better than a crisp, juicy apple? Yellow, red, even green, they are yummy . . . and good for you! You've all heard the old saying about eating apples and keeping away the doctors? Who doesn't think of apples when the cool air of autumn begins?

The blossoms are gorgeous and heady-smelling. The older knarled trunks are fascinating.

Did you know . . .

• That apples can be canned, juiced, and fermented to produce apple juice, cider, vinegar, and pectin?
• That they are an important ingredient in many winter desserts? apple pie, apple crumble, apple crisp and apple cake.
• They can be eaten fresh, baked, stewed, dried, or re-constituted for later use.
• They can be made into apple sauce or apple butter or apple jelly.
• They can be cooked with meat.
• They can be made into treats such as toffee apples, candy apples, or caramel apples.
• Jews eat them with honey.

Did you know . . .

• That apples may reduce the risk of colon cancer, prostate cancer and lung cancer?
• That apples may help with heart disease, weight loss and controlling cholesterol?
• That apples could protect the brain from the type of damage that triggles such diseases as Alzheimer's and Parkinsonism?
• That the antioxidants found in fresh apples can protect nerve cells?
• That apple consumption can help remove trapped food and clean between the teeth?

Then there's the myths . . .

• Apples are thought to be a mystical and forbidden fruit in some religions.

And one more, which is interesting . . .

• Apple trees do not flower in tropical climates because they have a chilling requirement.

Gotta go now . . . headed to the market . . . to buy some apples.



Apple Hints for those crazy about the fruit:

• To keep apples from discoloring after they are peeled, cut the pieces into a bowl of salted water (1 tbsp to a qt. or water).
• Use a ripe apple to ripen other fruits quickly. Place both in a brown paper bag. Set in a cool, shady spot and make sure there are a few holes in the bag.
• When making caramel apples, stick them onto a piece of styrofoam after dipping. They dry without sticking and store nicely in the fridge.
• Instead of throwing away the peels, saute them in butter, then spice them with sugar and cinnamon. Yum!

Quote:
In the garden, Autumn is, indeed the crowning glory of the year, bringing us the fruition of months of thought and care and toil. And at no season, safe perhaps in Daffodil time, do we get such superb colour effects as from August to November. -- Rose G. Kingsley



Blessings.