ESCAPE INTO AUTUMN!

Marion Pellicano Ambrose

Spring is so beautiful and meaningful with new life sprouting up everywhere, and summer is warm and lazy: a time for picnics with family and friends.   Winter is a frosty, silent time and an excuse to cozy up with the one you love, but Autumn – for me Autumn is the season of color, of memories and anticipation.

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.
~Stanley Horowitz

The sudden burst of yellow, orange, red, gold and brown and the crispness in the air during Autumn invigorate me. The scent of apples and wood burning in fireplaces brings me back to my childhood. I remember apple picking on a frosty morning and then  making pies, apple butter and apple crisp, enough for an army in fact. I can picture all of us girls hanging around and talking while the guys played football in the park. It was the time for placing pumpkins and wreaths made of colorful leaves and berries on our windows and doors and raggedy scarecrows on our lawns. Autumn was the herald that announced that it would soon be time for Jack o Lanterns, witches and bats, for little trick or treaters running up and down the block in adorable costumes asking for treats. Autumn: my favorite time of the year.
When I moved to Florida so many years ago, I had no idea how much I would miss the change of seasons. I longed for the scents and colors that I loved so much. I knew I couldn’t go back North, but after a few miserable Autumns of feeling sorry for myself, I learned to bring all the things I love about Autumn to Florida!(Well, almost all!)

First, I decorate to the hilt! Fall leaf garland along my Kitchen cabinet tops and on my hutch, gold red and orange wreaths in the windows and on the door, and of course the scarecrows in the yard! I burn Yankee “Autumn Wreath” scented candles in the living room and “Green Apple “ in the kitchen! I still bake my apple pies and make apple butter, but from store bought apples!
When Halloween gets closer, I turn my yard into a haunted graveyard and inside my house into a Halloween Showcase. I have a full Halloween town village, talking skeletons, witches and a wolfman that sings “I’m your boogie man”. I’ve made Halloween tablecloths and throw pillows, hang scary mirrors that show ghoul faces when you look into them, and of course, I play spooky music for weeks ahead of time!
I’ve always gotten my kids involved with Autumnl and Halloween crafts, activities, baking and cooking and songs and poems. One favorite is the night we make mummies and witches fingers for dinner (hot dogs wrapped in crescent roll dough and decorated with ketchup and mustard, homemade French fries cut like fingers ) . We also make graveyard cake for dessert (chocolate pudding with ground nilla wafers on top and tombstones made form Milano cookies with names written on them in cake decorator icing such as: Frank N, Stein RIP”

Another trick is that I make a Powerpoint of beautiful Fall scenery from up north and play it with beautiful music on a loop. Whenever I see all the gorgeous landscapes and locations, I feel like I’m back home for Autumn again
In case you need help getting in the mood for Autumnl, here are some sites, songs and scenery to get you started.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLr1oWjIC44  Beautiful Foliage, gentle music YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjICqZqshGc  Autumn Blaze YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyTBrpwzlM8  Fall Foliage in New England

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kP8jPa1wCg Autumn Leaves by Nat King Cole

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io_s3qFHVoY&feature=related Autumn in New York by Frank Sinatra

The Glory of Autumn

  by: Isaac McLellan (1806-1899)

The generous autumn days are come,
The merriest of the year,
With dewy morns and rosy eves,
And harvest moonlight clear;
The hoar-frost shineth thin and white
O'er mountain and o'er plain;
It gems the faded grass
And the stubble of the grain.

What time the day-dawn flecks the east,
A gauzy, filmy veil
Floats o'er the crystal river,
In the hollow of the vale.
The bearded oats, the juicy wheat,
Have all been gather'd in,
The latest crispy husk of corn
Is garner'd in the bin.

The apples of the orchard,
Red with the sun's caress,
Enrich the farmer's cellars
Or feed the cider-press.
Now is the season's carnival,
The fête-time of the year,
When the blithe October breezes
Blow bracingly and clear.

When husking frolics in the barn,
Or the flooding broad moonlight,
Prolong with jocund dance and song
The watches of the night.
For all the toil of seed-time
And the harvest now are o'er,
Save where the flail resoundeth
On the busy threshing-floor.

Now when the genial breezes
Sweep through the fading wood,
Tossing the scarlet maples,
And the oak leaves many-hued;
Ere dawns the day o'er hill and lawn,
The sportsman takes his way
To upland moor, or woodland haunts,
Or open breezy bay.

The outlying deer are now afoot,
To browse the dew-wet grass,
Or pause to taste the crystal brook,
And lakelet clear as glass;
The brown quail in the cedar copse
Leads forth her hungry brood.
The partridge whirs through open glade,
Or through the hemlock wood.

Now o'er the salt and sedgy marsh,
Where bends the rustling reed,
The piper and the plover
On the briny shallows feed.
The black-duck and the widgeon
Are swimming in the bay,
The geese and brant in black platoons
Defile their long array.

It is the sportsman's festival,
The year's most glorious time,
When the dahlia and the aster
Are in their golden prime,
When the rainbow-painted forests
Are resplendently aflame,
When every healthful breath we draw
Adds vigor to the frame.

The sweetest of our Northern bards
Hath sung in mournful lay
Of the dreary time of autumn--
Of the "sad" October day.
But methinks the changeful glories,
The sport, the harvest cheer,
Make the autumnal season
The brightest of the year.

Have a colorful, wonderful, blessed Autumn!