Fall Fascination

Fall is a never ending source of pleasure for me. Every day there is another beautiful tree or view to see. The traditional view that I carry in my mind is the "Perfect Tree". You know the one. It is a gorgeous gold, a flaming orange, or a red so deep and smooth you would expect to reach out and touch velvet.

Mother Nature's paint brush is always exquisite. The pictures from my childhood are of Connecticut hillsides ablaze in all the fall shades, from bright yellow, to burnt orange, to deep red. It wasn't until I returned to Pittsburgh that I began to appreciate the richness that is added when the late changers add their green to the palette.

But there are times when Mother Nature leaves me perplexed...or at least curious about the collage of color that I see. For instance, why is one mountain top green at the top and in full color at the bottom...but the very next hillside is green at the bottom and in full color at the top?

Why have all the maples on one side of my street changed, AND lost their leaves, but the other side is still green?

Most of the maples around here have a very even leaf loss.

What's up with this one??

Why do some trees seem to change from the inside out? Or from the top down?

I know that there are scientific explanations for each of these questions. I can even guess at some of them. But after I saw this tree next to a small country church, I decided, Maybe God just wants to remind us He created this world and He is still in charge.



The Pumpkin Patch

Our church took on a new fund raising project this year. We are selling pumpkins! I've been involved in a project like this before. When we lived in Florida, Jenny introduced the idea to her Youth Fellowship group when she was a junior in high school. It was so successful it is still the main Youth fund raiser over 15 years later.

I've discovered one big difference between a 'Pumpkin Patch' in Florida and one in Pennsylvania. The temperature! Last week when Jen called me I was at the patch. It was a cold, blustery day with rain showers occasionally pelting us. I was bundled up in long underwear, jeans, socks, boots, long sleeve t-shirt, sweatshirt, coat and hat. It was NOT a 'perfect fall day'! In Florida I would have been enjoying a balmy 80 degrees in a cute fall t-shirt with pumpkins and scarecrows on it. And my customers would have been able to see it.

The weather and I have been very consistent. I have been at the 'Patch' every afternoon, and it has been cold, windy, and cloudy every day. Sweatshirts, hats, gloves and heavy coats are the uniform of choice by most of the workers. The occasional bursts of sun were welcome, but short lived. I don't know that it is actually colder than usual. I suspect my perspective is colored by the fact that I am out for 3 hours at a time, and usually just sitting, as opposed to walking or being physically active.

Despite my complaints, the 'Patch' has been a lot of fun and has a lot to offer visitors. Along with a cornstalk maze and activities for children, there is a story telling tent, some musical entertainment and a concession stand on the weekends.

I'm really glad we have taken on this project. It is a great opportunity for church members to work together, and to meet the community. I hope it is a huge success and we can repeat it in the future.
But right now, what I'm really hoping for are some warmer days. I have a couple of fall sweatshirts I want to show off, and it's hard to see them under all these layers!

Perfect Sunday Afternoon

October is the one month you can really relish a perfect afternoon. Today, the air is cool, the sun is bright, the sky is blue. As the sun sets the hillside glows like it only can in October.

Today as I sit on the deck I feel good about the completion of a job--the yard is freshly mowed. I wear my Ronde Barber football jersey. It is just the right weight and coverage for the temperature. In Florida it was too hot to wear it.

I sit and read a book in the late afternoon sun with an amply fortified screwdriver (that's beverage, not tool).

There is only one problem that crosses my mind.

When I moved here my goal was to read the unread books on my shelves and remove them one by one. The goal was to have only a few boxes of books to take with me the next time me moved. But the local used book store, Barnes and Noble, and my book club are conspiring to introduce me to enough really good books that I want to keep them.

Today I am reading one of them. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society has me laughing out loud, loving the characters, and marveling at what people go through in times of war.

I live in a place where the proximity of war is unknown. I am grateful.

My shelves will have one more book to protect.

And I have one more perfect Sunday afternoon to remember.

Impressions of Warren

3 year old boys are a hoot. It was such fun watching this one. I always see such growth when I visit my grandsons. I try to see them twice a year.
Vocabulary words Warren has educated me on this year: Combine, Payloader, Road Grader, bulldozer, cart, wagon, tractor, Quad Track, Castle--a grain elevator! :), planter--He may be working on his colors and numbers, but he can ID any piece of farm equipment.
Here are a few "Warrenism's".
Looking for a lost toy (his red man), he takes a flashlight down the hall calling "HellOOOO?"
Mowing the grass with his toy mower he mime's putting in ear plugs, shakes his head, lipping "I can't hear you".
Lines up his blocks across the room, building 'hoses'--imitating the farmers laying 'tile', a black hose that is buried in the ground to help drain off the water.
Runs in the room, grabs his handy-man light, hammer or wrench, "I have to fix something" and disappears again.
Calling for his dad: "Hey, Mike!"
Gets his bike out: "I have to go to work now. Don't take my picture, Granberry." ( a sign of an over photographed subject ;} )
And my favorite:
A gentle hug and a soft "I like you, Granberry."

Computers....can't live with OR without them

I had hopes for today. I got up and did my workout. I took care of the light chores. I had lunch. Then I looked at the rest of my To-Do list. Vacuum, clean up the loft, walk, read, Call HP. I REALLY didn't want to call HP. But I knew I had to.
Last week I had an issue with a wireless printer we own. I called HP and played Spider Solitaire on the desktop computer while HP used my laptop remotely to find out what the problem was. The techs are very cordial, and pleasant. They say my name with a funny accent and occasionally the connection on the speaker phone seems to screech, but I don't mind. They can navigate the morass that makes up a computer hard drive with an ease that eludes me. I watch my arrow seemingly move with a life of its own until, voila, my printer begins to work! Yea!! I think.
The next day I open Internet Explorer. A dialogue box pops up telling me my security program has been disabled. Hmmm. I play around and have no clue. I try to turn it back on, but nothing happens. I restart my computer. No luck.
I'm busy. I don't have time for this. So I ignore it until I do.
Today I can't ignore it anymore. It is time to face the phone...HP tells me the problem is in my computer, not my printer. DUH...'no, they can't fix it'. Toshiba tells me the problem is in Windows. Call Microsoft. Microsoft tells me it will be faster if I go online. I spend hours online clicking here and there and literally going in circles. Each click eventually takes me back to the beginning, with no PERSON in sight! Finally, I go back to the phone with the information MS wants just to tell me how much it will cost for me to talk to a person.
Bottom line? Another pleasant tech takes control of my computer, does her guru thing, makes SURE MY PRINTER STILL WORKS, and leaves me grateful and annoyed.

Computer and printer: $800.00
Tech support to make it all work: $60.00
Assuaging my frustration .....  Priceless????    Not Exactly. Maybe I shoulda' bought an Apple.

Night Lights

During my visit to Jan's I gave you lots of impressions of Iowa. The flat, gravel roads. The sounds. The fields. It is so different from Pittsburgh that I always enjoy going there as much for the view as for the family. I'm going to share one more view that really fascinated me the first time I noticed it. It is the lights at night.

When Jan met Mike she took him to see the ocean. He said he had never seen water for as far as the eye could see, but he had seen corn for as far as the eye could see. In daytime in Iowa, it doesn't seem as if there is much else. It is corn and soybean fields, distant horizons, occassional outcroppings of trees, a house and barn every mile or so.

But walk outside at night and look around. There are lights everywhere. Stand in the road and do a 360 degree turn. The lights don't seem to be in a row, but they are all around you. Where do they come from? None of them look close, like the ones in your neighborhood. But they don't look far away either. They are 'across the field'. Some are red blinking ones. You can assume they are attached to a tower somewhere. But where?

I've learned that light travels great distances. I knew that from my science classes, and from looking at the stars. In Iowa it becomes more evident. Those red blinking lights are on windmills 30 miles away. They sit just above the horizon and look as if they could be on the main road. The white lights are the dusk to dawn lights on farms I can't even see during the day. I don't see big lights, small lights, near lights, far lights, (excuse me Dr. Seuss). I see LIGHTS!

It is an amazing sight to me. Just another intriguing aspect of a part of the country very different from Pittsburgh.

Welcome, Fall

September flew by helped along by the birth of Samantha. I am home again, and slowly regaining the rhythm of the day. I have to admit that one advantage of family and job is that it always made it easier for me to get back into a routine. Since the demands on my days are few, it always takes me about 3-4 days to regroup and develop a daily pattern.

It didn't help that I was welcomed back home by 4 days of rain and cold weather. I was only able to get out and walk one day. Today is wonderful. The sun is shining, the sky is blue and I'm finally able to really see the beginnings of the fall colors around me.

Fall is truly my favorite season. The changing leaves and the crisp air are hard to beat. As much as I enjoy summer with it's warm days and trees covered in green, a beautiful fall day cannot be matched. I love the golds, russets, reds; fields of goldenrod, and bloom of mums. Unfortunately, sometimes I have a difficult time embracing it. I also see it as a signal that winter is on the way and it will be many months before I can enjoy those warm days again. But last year, I discovered one of the hidden blessings of fall.

There is a natural progression to fall. It begins with just a hint. The days become 'slightly' cooler, and just a bit shorter. As it moves on the world around me becomes breathtaking. I fall in love with cool nights for sleeping, windows open during the day, air that is crisp and clear. Eventually all great things must come to an end. The colors fade to brown. The days become cold and chilly. But just then Christmas lights appear everywhere--in stores, in nursery's, on city streets. By Thanksgiving, fall maybe almost past and winter may be almost here, but the holiday season is in full swing. And that brings it's own special joy.

Fall provides a beautiful backdrop as it transitions us from summer to winter. And the Holiday season provides a beatiful backdrop as winter arrives. One of the side effects of spending so many years in Florida is that I found winter harder this time than when I lived here as a child. But there are gorgeous winter days as well.  So as Fall descends I will embrace it in all it's stages. I will be like Frederick in Leo Lionni's children's book. I will absorb all the colors of summer and fall so that when winter comes I can remember that deep blue sky, green leaves, daisies, rosebushes, warm sun, and babbling brooks. And on a gray, rainy or snowy day, I'll pull out those memories and warm myself with them as I sit by the fire.