Visiting Mimi & Pa

The bluffs by our river are at the height of their fall beauty this week. Sumac is brilliant red. A red you can’t even describe. Red with such depth and light that you can’t make up your mind whether there’s more orange in it or pink. The maples are at that point where finally the whole tree has turned color and stands there ablaze in bright orange with a firey red blush; in a few more days the leaves will fall in showers and leave the trees bare. Other trees send down golden rain. A few remain green. It takes your breath away to drive through. Up and over the hill, winding down through a canopy of color, then across the river valley in gold, up the other side, brilliant sumac, then it’s gone. You drive on through rustling fields of ripening corn and dry brown fields of soybeans to harvest, but you don’t forget the exhilaration of that color.
.
.
I got to drive through that beauty on Monday on my way to my parents’ farm. My man had to leave town for a few days for a business trip, so, instead of staying by ourselves, Greta and I packed up some of our things and went to visit Mimi and Pa. It was a wonderful week to go. Their cottage in the hollow was the most warm and cozy place to be on the best of autumn weeks. We listened to new-found jazz favorites while cooking, making applesauce, doing projects. I drank in the warm autumn abundance of vines and herbs, maturing plants bringing forth their treasure of seedpods and fruit, marigolds and runner beans, bright helichrysum drying on their stems and gaillardia’s last blossoming. My siblings and I went on a search in the grove to find mosses and small plants to make a terrarium for Mama. They led me to places where the Virginia Creeper grew most abundantly so that we could pull some down and create bramble-beauty for the house with it. Dinnertime saw us starting a new book together, Leave it to Psmith, with us taking turns reading it aloud. There was a good deal of laughter reading that. Greta always had plenty of someones to rescue her when she got stuck in a corner or to snuggle her after a nap. A blessing the week was to be sure.
I did miss my man though, and am very glad to have him home. I believe we will be winterizing around our own cozy space this weekend. It will be getting cold soon.
Ah, I think I hear someone waking up from her nap now. I’m going to go smooch her…

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.