Around the Neighborhood

Everyone must take time to sit and watch the leaves turn. ~Elizabeth Lawrence

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all. ~Stanley Horowitz

Bittersweet October. The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause between the opposing miseries of summer and winter. ~Carol Bishop Hipps

"As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." Genesis 8:22

A Touch of Fall

My son asked if he could use my car to go to that very popular, well-known furniture store that everyone loves that I've never been to.
Of course, I said that he could, and then he asked if I would like to go along. If it had been to see the sights of the D.C. area, I would have jumped at the chance, but since it was a shopping trip, I politely declined. Besides, where would they put the furniture?

Last night when David got the suitcase out, Ella kept trying to unzip all the zippers. Her daddy asked her where she was going, and she answered that she was going to take a trip around the world. So this morning when she came upstairs to tell me good-by, I told her to have a good time on her trip around the world.

I decided to take a drive around this morning, but when I went out, it began to rain, so I came back to the house and started watching a football game. After a while, I looked out the window and the sun was out, so I took advantage of the time to take a few photos. It's sort of hard to take pictures while you're driving, so I ended up driving through a local cemetery not far from David's house. There was no traffic there. And I had to get back in time for the Pe*n State football game.

The colors are not brilliant, but very pleasant. I felt that if I didn't get them today, the rains might come and wash them all away. One more week, and I'll be headed back to fall in Florida, where the temperatures have dropped some (I hope) and the humidity won't be so bad. Our fall decorations adorn our houses, but it just isn't quite the same as feeling the crisp air and excitement that comes in the states to the north.

The Object of My Affection

When I came downstairs this morning, Ella was jumping all over the living room. "Grammy, this is my jumper, so I can jump." And jump she did. This three -year-old is a bundle of energy. I told her mother the other day that when I was teaching first grade, the children bounded out of the room with the same energy with which they entered in the morning. If we could only bottle it!

"Hi, Grammy."

After lunch I was sitting on the love seat, and I snapped several shots of her coming toward me, backing up, and starting the game all over again. Of all the shots I got, even though this one is a little out of focus, it's a great photo of her.

When her mother asked her what she wanted to be for Hallowe'en, she responded, "An elephant!" Mom had expected her to say a princess or something like that, but no, an elephant. So I said to her, "So, you're going to be Ella the elephant."

"No," she said, "I'm Ella the Bella." Indeed, she is.

Mary Jane's Fuchsias

Hanging on Mary Jane's porch were these beautiful hanging pots of fuchsias. I had never particularly noticed this flower before. A friend of mine in California, along with her husband, raise these beautiful flowers and belong to a fuchsia society. Now I can see why. Click on the photo to see the detail.

My week

This past week I drove up to visit a very dear friend who lives in the Finger Lakes area of New York, near the town of Naples. Naples is located south of Lake Canandaigua. My friend, Mary Jane and her husband Jim were missionaries in Haiti for twenty years, and that is where I first met them forty years ago. Two of her sons were in my class in Haiti when I was a teacher there. When they found themselves back in the United States, they moved to New York where Jim was the pastor of a church. They served there for twenty years and then retired and moved to Naples. This photo of them was taken at the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of their church's beginning. Jim is now with the Lord, and Mary Jane contines to live there and stays busy in her church now.

The first day I was there we took a drive around the countryside, stopping at several places. Our first stop was at a Mennonite store. There were an abundance of gifts, all types of apparel and just about anything you could ever need. What fun!

From there we headed to a farm store where there was every kind of squash, seasonal fruit, and vegetable that you could hope to find. And beautiful mums were everywhere.

After another stop, we arrived at this winery. When we arrived, some folks were over picking some grapes and tasting them. They told us that they had been told that we could pick and eat as much as we wanted. These concord grapes were oh, so sweet. Vineyards can be seen everywhere. For some reason I had thought that with the weather getting cold, the grapes would be done, but such is not the case. Festivals were being held , and as you can see, there seemed to be an abundance of grapes.

It was a wonderful three days that I spent with Mary Jane. I'll post a few more photos tomorrow or Monday. Be sure to click on the photos to see details...especially the collages.

A hint of fall

I began looking for color as soon as I arrived at David's on Wednesday. The maple tree near the street in his front yard has a hint of color. Many other trees in the area have changed or are beginning to change, so I'm looking forward to that. Tomorrow I'm driving to New York to the Finger Lakes area to visit a very dear friend. I'm sure that the drive up will reveal much more.

Ella has the right idea. People will be very busy from now on, keeping their yards cleared of leaves as they fall. We were out playing the other day, and she was more interested in sweeping the driveway and raking than playing, although we did a fair amount of playing too.

While she was up in the tree and I was standing there to help her down, I noticed these lonely leaves, a picture of things to come.

And here is my favorite subject--Hector and Ella. While we were out, Hector came down to visit. He is a dream of a cat, just the perfect one for two little girls who love to pet him. However, he did decide to get away from Ella and went through the hole in the neighbor's fence. Ella called and called him, and he came just close enough for him to see her. They visited for a while before we came in the house for lunch.