The October wind began by
playfully tugging at the crimson leaves just as they were celebrating
their short golden season. A few leaves lost their weakened grip and
silently cart wheeled toward the still emerald grass. Cutting in to
their celebration, the fitful wind took a turn and began to hum its
final farewell to summer. With a sigh, more leaves waved a sad
goodbye and joined their colorful friends as they tumbled aimlessly.
Suddenly the wind turned brutal, singing winter’s song, as it
violently whipped branches, dislodging flashes of magnificent scarlet
and gold.
The wind slowly calmed.
A blinding sun came out to shine on nature’s flame-colored carpet,
the curled gold and bronze chrysanthemums, half nude shrubs and still
brilliant Virginia creepers. A low-hanging evening mist moved in as
timid deer slowly graze amid fall’s decline, blissfully unaware
that they’d soon be seeing men in blaze orange.
When the last warm rain
of summer came, it gently pelted the tenacious leaves that were still
hanging. before turning cold and pounding them relentlessly to the
ground. The rain began to freeze. Ice covered, mute leaves seemed
pitiful, cold. They once had clung thick and proud to their mother
trees but now they are old, brown—corpses.
Tree
skeleton time had come. The air carried the crisp aroma of October.
The gorgeous tints, the chest squeezing beauty of autumn have
shriveled and fade forever.
Rachel
Nemitz, October 2009
Apples
What’s
more Minnesotan than that fall trip to the apple orchard? There are
baskets of apples, apple jelly, apple butter, caramel apples, candy
apples, dried apples and even unbaked frozen apple pies for sale.
Excited children run among the swirling leaves eager to choose the
biggest and roundest pumpkins to take home and carve into
jack-o-lanterns. Shocks of corn stalks and brightly flowering mums
add to the fall scene but it’s really all about the apples.
The
“forbidden fruit” redeemed itself centuries before the Americas
were discovered. But it became the jewel, the crowning glory, of
Sunday dinners all across the United States giving rise to the
phrase, “as American as apple pie.” There is something very
special about sliced apples topped with cinnamon and sugar, baked
between two crisp crusts and served warm.
Apples
are beautiful…that glowing red teacher’s gift and that shiny
green Granny Smith. They’re not only beautiful but they taste good
and they smell good and they’re good for us.
A few
months ago while watching television I learned a couple of things
about apples. The United States is the second largest producer but
China produces five times the apples we do. Also, all the bottles of
apple juice made from condensed apples on our grocery shelves come
from China except for one brand, Martinelli’s.
The
University of Minnesota is well known for being a leader in
developing new apples and most of us feel a certain sense of pride
when we hear that our Honeycrisp is the sweetest, juiciest apple of
all.
Rachel
Nemitz, September 2009
