Autumn on the Orchard

It's fall in the Midwest.

That means crisp evenings of football

And Homecoming Games surrounded by friends...and bowls of chili...and steaming paper cups of hot chocolate...and getting jostled in line at the concession stand under the bleachers by high-schoolers wrapped up in their drama, nudging each other and asking, in furtive whispers, if we were ever that young...

 

Fall is Sunday afternoons spent at the Orchard...

 

 ...amid rows of canned preserves and jellies and salsas

and crates and crates of candied orange slices and red hots and dried fruits housed in a building that smells of dried leaves and apples and kettle corn and honey.

It's tumbling through the pumpkin patch searching for the perfect one. The tall one for Mr. Man's ghost pumpkin. The big fat one for Isabelle's jack-o-lantern. The perfectly round one that The Monkey can carry "all by myself this year"...

 Getting salty over the umpteenth picture mom has attempted to take...just hoping one turns out well...

Oh, and honey sticks...

...Lots and Lots of Honey Sticks.

And craft fairs

And five pound bags of apples for pies and sauce at home later that week...and maybe a cobbler...

It's unrushed afternoons strolling through the orchard, letting The Munchkins run just because they can. Letting them climb hay bales and jump to reach the low-hanging branches on the trees and be silly and pick $20 worth of pumpkins that they just want to color on and I just want to carve up for the seeds.
It's fall. In Indiana. There can be no better time of year...