As we push into the final month of the year, Thanksgiving in the rearview mirror and Christmas just up around the bend, I thought I would post another picture from a wonderful October afternoon spent at Aamodt’s Apple Farm in Stillwater, Minnesota with my lovely wife, Leonor and our faithful companion, Copernicus.
It was the last hoorah of autumn. Not long after these photos were taken, the gold and crimson leaves fell from the trees; the sun got lower in the sky; the days grew shorter, colder, nastier.
The beautiful colors of fall are now but a memory, to be clung to dearly as we trudge through our daily lives in the god-forsaken tundra we call home for six months of the year. Can you tell I’m not a winter person?
It’s not that winter is all bad. But I do hate the cold. And the snow. And the sleet. And the freezing rain. The salt you inevitably track into your home every time you come from outside. The air so dry your skin actually cracks.
But the snow is pretty. Until you have to shovel it.
No, winter is not my favorite time of year. Not by a long shot. I do like Christmas, though. The lights. The decorations. The smell of the pine tree that resides in your living room for a month. Sometimes I like to just sit and stare at the Christmas tree, looking at the ornaments, old and new; looking at ornaments that I’ve looked at every single Christmas since I was a little boy.
Yes, the Christmas season has arrived. But before we overdose on eggnog and figgy pudding, I wanted to say my last goodbyes to autumn. I’ll see you again soon. Only six short months of winter, forty-five minutes of spring and a few months of road-construction season and we’ll be together again. Until then, so long, my friend.