Crunching Leaves and Apple Butter

"Autumn burned brightly, 
a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees."~Faith Baldwin

Ahhh!  Fall!  This is my favorite season.  Forget frigid Winter mornings, wet Spring days, and hot muggy Summer evenings.  Autumn is it.  Crisp, clear mornings.  Warm afternoons.  Evenings with a walk through crunchy leaves.  Can't you smell it?  I have so missed Fall.  You really don't get one in Tennessee.  It's kinda Summer until February and then a day or two of Fall before Winter.  This weather, more than anything, reminds me that I'm home.

 And Autumn means it's Festival time in Ohio.  Well, actually it's always Festival time here, but it's my favorite ones.  Hay rides, pumpkin patches, corn mazes, haunted houses, you name it.  This weekend was the Apple Butter Festival.   I've been looking forward to this one for a while. This is one that I really remember from my childhood.  Watching the apples boiling in the pots over an open flame.  Tasting apple butter for the first time on a warm slice of homemade bread.  Mmmm....

And now I pass on the memories to my children.  Some old, some new.  They have an incredible way of making their own adventures.  Take the hay for example.  A simple pile of hay.  My three were the ring-leaders of a good thirty minutes of play time with perfect strangers.  I'll wager to bet that every one of those children will look back on that day with fondness.  

So here's to memories.  Old and new.  God is painting his canvas with all of the colors of the rainbow now.  Letting us know that the cold is coming.  But showering us with flames before going out in a blaze of glory.  Savor these days.  I know I am!  Share with us what your favorite fall pastime is...