fresh, crisp, and rustling leaves

“Farmer’s Market” by Linda Picken

Here’s the puzzle I started on the Autumn Equinox and finished this morning. This is the second stop on my journey around the Wheel of the Year by myself. And a little trip down memory lane with some photos from past celebrations. Enjoy!

2021 ~ Old Mystic, Connecticut
Clyde’s Cider Mill

The two main things we used to do to celebrate the equinox were apple picking at Holmberg’s Orchard and picking up freshly pressed apple cider and pumpkin bread at Clyde’s Cider Mill. At home Tim used to make me a great cup of hot cider with cinnamon sugar on the rim of the cup. And although I don’t have too many pictures of leaf beds, an autumn day wouldn’t be complete without a walk through the ‘fresh, crisp, and rustling leaves‘ in the woods. 🍂

2020 ~ Holmberg Orchards, Ledyard, Connecticut
2020 ~ Holmberg Orchards
2016 ~ Holmberg Orchards ~ hanging gourds
2016 ~ Holmberg Orchards

It is pleasant to walk over the beds
of these fresh, crisp, and rustling leaves.
How beautifully they go to their graves!
How gently lay themselves down
and turn to mould!
Painted of a thousand hues, and fit
to make the beds of us living.
So they troop to their last resting place,
light and frisky. They put on no weeds,
but merrily they go scampering over the earth,
selecting the spot,
choosing a lot,
ordering no iron fence…
How many flutterings
before they rest quietly in their graves!
They that soared so loftily, how contentedly
they return to dust again, and are laid low,
resigned to lie and decay at the foot of the tree,
and afford nourishment to new generations of their kind,
as well as to flutter on high!
They teach us how to die.

~ Henry David Thoreau
(Autumnal Tints)

🍂🍂🍂