AFTER THE LEAVES TURN

          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