Welcome Autumn!

Fall has always been my favorite season. The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale.
— Lauren DeStefano

It's the first day of autumn! A time of hot chocolatey mornings, and toasty marshmallow evenings, and, best of all, leaping into leaves!
— Winnie the Pooh

But when fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you.
― Stephen King

A wonderful thing happened on the weekend – it officially became fall!

The days are shortening, becoming cold enough that you need a jacket in the morning, but warming up nicely during the day. The sun is somehow brighter now, the air crisp and clear.

Are you yea or nay on pumpkin spice? Pumpkin spice seems to be synonymous with the fall these days. It has become so popular that our local Starbucks keeps running out.

On Friday the granddaughter helped her Grampy close up the pool for the season. This involved him having to put on his bathing suit for one last dip so that he could take the stairs out. And yes, we laughed at his reaction to the temperature of the water. A series of cold nights has dropped the temperature of the pool water considerably. Then one last pool cleaning and the cover could be put on.

This is also the time when the gardens are ready to be harvested. I don’t know about anyone else’s, but ours was late going in, so it’s still going strong. The cherry tomatoes on the deck are just about done, but the ones in the actual garden are still ripening.

The green beans are done – this year’s crop was pretty poor compared to previous years. I don’t know how much of that is due to the infestation of Japanese beetles and how much was the extreme weather we had over the summer.

We’ve been getting a lot of tomatoes, but we have to pick them when they’re just starting to turn pink and let them finish ripening in the house, otherwise the tend to split and rot. The exception was the tomato the granddaughter found on Friday. It was hidden deep in the tangle of green bean and tomato vines, and was the most perfect tomato of the season.

I wanted to pull the green bean vines, but they’re so entwined with the tomato vines that it’s almost impossible to separate them. And I don’t want to mess with the tomato vines yet because they’re still covered with green tomatoes. If the temperature dips too low at night we’ll have to pick them anyway and put them in paper bags to ripen.

I’ve started to pull the carrots as needed – once to go with a beef roast and once to go with a pork roast – and I don’t mind saying they are the best carrots I’ve ever had. Late this week I’ll be pulling some more for a stew, but the rest are fine in the ground for a while.

The peppers went crazy this year. I’ve never had pepper plants produce so much before. My neighbor (who gave me the plants as seedlings) said to wait until they turn red before picking them, but only a couple of them have turned so far. I’m probably going to pick the largest ones anyway, and cut them up for the freezer.

I know these bright days won’t last forever, but I intend to make the most of them while I can.

How do you celebrate Autumn?