Autumanal bliss

After a long summer in which almost every day was a 'bloggable' day by the standards of this author, school has resumed and with it the ebb and flow of daily domestic minutia and the subtle joys of the weekends with the kids. As with most of the rest of the state we woke up to a chill in the air that was beyond just crisp, a definitive preface to the onset of winter. All of this seems too early for a summer that seldom crept into the range of summer. The leaves are about 50% of peak and I suspect will top out in the next week to ten days around here. We tried to make the most of it, and on Saturday went apple picking. It was cold, we were underdressed, not poor planning as much as too stubborn to admit that it was as cold as it was. Temperature was in the mid thirties and there was a pretty stiff breeze. The kids didn't mind too much, as the tractor ride out to the apple trees as well as the fruit picking poles was enough novelty to warm them up. The also were able to pick out their pumpkins on the way home. Both of them felt the full brunt of being in the elements and had Chernobyl style melt-downs on the way home. In the afternoon we taught the kids about Columbus day, and drove down to the spice store and claimed it as our own.
Sunday was equally cold/beautiful. The sun, while no longe warm, still was bright in the sky and we headed out for an early morning hike. Sophia wanted a walking stick to cruise the trails dappled with sun light and a palate of leaf colors and Merrick just wanted a stick so he could pretend to shoot things when he wasn't actually beating trees, brush, rocks or anything else that didn't move. The maples had lost most of their leaves and the forest floor appeared to be pockets of gold where their leaves had dropped. The previous day's gourd score was also appropriately gutted and faced into the jack-o-lanterns that now decorate our front stoop. Merrick was less interested in the pumpkins and was easily side-tracked by the balls in the back yard that surely needed to be kicked, while Sophia dutifully gutted and carved faces on both sides of her pumpkin. She figured that way no matter which direction people in our neighborhood were walking they would get to see her rendition of Comedy and Tragedy. After long naps by all we had a small fire in the back yard and then commitioned the kids to paint for us. Earlier in the week I had built some frames and stretched some canvas and prepped them to be painted. The kids doned their painting gear and were as Merrick imediately gravited to impressionistic art, Sophia started out in realistic and then migrated through Van Gogh impressionism and eventually ended with late Monet inspired impressionism. Through here artistic travel she did stop to dabble in some surrealism when her flower was the same size as her tree, she told me she was just using her imagination. After supper we made the early fall pies, apple and pumpkin, as a test run for the upcoming glutinous holiday and called it a pretty good weekend.