Pampers and Paklava

Why I always fall for fall

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Next to spring, autumn is my favorite season. The air has a certain crispness, clouds add interest to an otherwise gray sky. Nature puts on her spectacular coat of many colors. I love the earthy smells from dying leaves and the wet ground. Fall is a dramatic season, a season of contrasts—quiet misty mornings and thundering rainstorms.

After summer, a season with so much light and exuberance, I find the moodiness that comes with autumnal weather offers a bit of respite. A time to reflect while I enjoy the harvest or cozy-up under a blanket and sip tea on a stormy day This is why I always fall for fall.

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting

and autumn a mosaic of them all.

~Stanley H. Horowitz

fall morning in Seattle

Geese on Whidbey Island

ferry and rainstorm

goats and fog

It’s all about the journey,

Beth

Autumnal Equinox

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Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

― Albert Camus

Grapes in fall

The autumnal equinox takes place at 4:21 a.m. EDT Wednesday, September 22 when the sun moves directly over the equator, making day and night nearly the same length. That’s where the word comes from, “equi” for equal in Latin and with “nox” for night. The autumn equinox is the official beginning of fall which continues until December 21, Winter solstice.

Leaves turning

In the 1200s, fall was called harvest in the 1200s, but 300 years later people began using the term “autumn,” from old French word autompne. Fall, from “fall of the leaf,” gained popularity in the 16th century. The British continue to refer to the season as “autumn” while in the United States we typically say fall.

Washington Palouse

Call the season what you will but there is no doubt that the air is crisper, green leaves are changing to brilliant hues of red and gold, and birds are packing their bags for the trip south. Dusk is earlier and daylight dwindles. Welcome fall.

Fall flight

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Take the road less traveled, Beth

Autumn in Armenia

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Four of my six trips to Armenia have taken place in the fall, so when the weather begins to change and the air becomes crisp, leaves turn color, and the smell of rain is in the air, my mind wanders to Autumn in Armenia.

Hillsides Autumn in Armenia

Alongside roads, farmers set out fruit to sell.

Roadside apples in Armenia

Ripe grapes hang from trellises by many of the homes.

Homegrown Armenian grapes

Every kind of canned fruit or vegetable imaginable can be found: apricots, cornelian cherries, pickles and okra.

Preserves in Armenia

Wonderful Armenian honey and honeycomb is harvested.

Armenian honey

Unusual fruit like Sea Buckthorn are juiced or dried.

Sea buckthorn berries Armenia

Strings of berries hang from trees waiting to be taken home and made into jam.

Rowan berries

Fields filled with sunflowers and wild Cosmos.

Wild Cosmos flowers Armenia

Shepherds bringing their flocks down from higher pastures.

Armenian cow and fall color

Always beautiful.

Geghard Armenia autumn

…and, of course, then comes the rain.

Rain in Yerevan

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Take the road less traveled, Beth

Flying into fall

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Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

~George Eliot

My feathered friends are getting ready for fall, fattening their bellies with suet and sweets, preparing for the season to come.

Hummingbird and scarlett runner beans

Hummingbird on runer bean

Hummingbird on vine maple

Blue jay on the fence

Finch at the birdbath  Chickadee on a branch

Take the road less traveled, Beth

Paris in the fall

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Everyone talks about visiting Paris in the springtime, but I love Paris in the fall. Dots of autumn leaves color the sky like a Pissaro painting, the spicy scent of mulled wine wafts in the air from cafes in the Tuileries, mist creates a moody feeling, and raindrops play on the sidewalks.

Fall leaves in Tuileries

Mulled wine in Paris

Red vine on wall in Paris

Paris under clouds from Montmarte

Yellow umbrella in Paris

Rain on an awingin iin Paris

Woman and dog in Paris

Paris Metro

Take the road less traveled, Beth

Hillsides covered in color

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Growing up in central New York State, I got to experience fall at its finest. Come late September, first one tree and then another would start a spectacular transformation and put aside its summer dress for a fall cloak of color. Hues of yellow and gold, red and burgundy slowly appeared on trees up and down the streets.

By early to mid-October, the countryside was ablaze. Hills looked like an oil painting where the artist lost his paint from the blue and green side of the palette. All that was left were the warm tones of autumn. It was a magical time of the year when Mother Nature took out her special wand and slowly drew it over the hillsides and trees morphed from a field of green to a tapestry of red and gold.

In 1982, I moved to the west coast, first the San Francisco bay area for three years and then Seattle, the city I’ve called home for the past 25 years. Living in California during the fall was like being inside a vacation brochure. Palm trees lined the street that went into campus. While it wasn’t quite L.A.-Santa-in-swim-trunks, it sure didn’t feel like the beginning of the sweater season I knew and loved growing up near Syracuse, New York.

One of the reasons I moved north to Washington State in 1985 was that on cloudy days (and there are plenty of them) when you couldn’t really see the mountains, the roll of the hillsides and the mix of deciduous trees almost felt like the towns of my youth. Still, in my mind, the northwest didn’t hold a candle to the northeast when it came to fall color. I would point to a maple tree on the side of the road and say wistfully: “See that tree over there. Well, imagine hillsides covered in color.” It became my mantra and Seattle friends who knew me well would recite the second line moments after I launched into the first.

The past few years though, I’ve begun to change my tune. Sure there are days when it seems like the scenery is a soggy mess of muted brown, but there are also days when the skies are clear and blue and the rainbow of colors in the trees is so electric your eyes almost hurt from looking directly at them. And while the hillsides and mountains have a preponderance of evergreens, as I drive up and down the streets there is crimson as far as the eye can see.

All hail fall. Though I’m sad to see the summer pass, autumn brings the world in a little closer: a hour spent tucked in a cozy chair reading a good book, coming inside to sip hot cider after an chilly afternoon’s walk, or snuggling close with Big Papa as we watch the trees weave a many-colored quilt to drop on the garden below.

October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came –
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.

~George Cooper, “October’s Party”