AUTUMN  MY FAVORITE SEASON

 

Who doesn't enjoy watching the leaves from the trees and plants changing into multi-colored works of art  during autumn.

 

The maple trees are especially vibrant with colors of red and golden-yellow then .

 

 Autumn is the perfect time for taking beautiful scenic photos and spending time outdoors with your family.

 

In my opinion nothing can relax you and rejuvenate you more than enjoying nature and its surrounding scenery.

 

When the cooler temperatures of fall start rolling in, we break out the flannel shirts  jackets, coats, boots, scarves and hats in preparation for the change in season.

 

Sunsets  are beautiful as the season changes. The glitter of frost or rain from the night before is always a beautiful sight.

 

Fall was my mother's favorite season.

Her demeanor changed when the weather started getting cooler, as she would spend more and more time outdoors. She had a sense of peace and thankfulness that I hope to convey to those around me.

 

Of course, we all have different memories scattered throughout different parts of the year, but autumn brings back the best ones for me.

 

I leave you with this great poem

 

"The Mist and All"

 

I like the fall,

The mist & all.

I like the night owl's

Lonely call

And wailing sound

Of wind around.

I like the gray

November day,

And bare, dead boughs

That coldly sway

Against my pane.

I like the rain.

 

I like to sit

And laugh at it

And tend

My cozy fire a bit.

I like the fall

The mist and all.

—Dixie Willson

 

Coleman Schell

 Watermelons

Years ago when i was a  youngster our family would slice up a home grown watermelon for us to eat when they were in season.

  My brothers and sisters and I would eat those slices of watermelon some as wide as our faces;  leaning over the grass, while the juices dribbled down our chins and forearms,to spit out the seeds.

 I  recall  the enjoyment we had, being kids  but you  had to know we weren't going to be content with just eating the melon ;  all it took to get a  seed spitting fight  going was for one of the siblings  to spit a seed  at one of the others .

The war was on then, I've had my share of seeds down my collar before  the seed spitting game would end

Often it would get "what Dad called a little out of hand" and he would have to call a halt to the game.

Which then left us with a few   smirks to throw at each other instead of seeds,  "with out dad  knowing or seeing  of course".

Nowadays watermelon is available in a seedless variety, that not only makes for better refined slurping, but on the other hand has  put a damper on  seed spitting.

I often  think back when all the melons we grew  were filled with seeds, in fact  they had so many seeds you could hardly eat a slice with out raking the seeds  off first..

Progress in seed  genetics has changed the way melons are grown today, eliminating  the little  game we used to play "but we sure had fun while the seeds lasted".

August is watermelon Month,  you should eat watermelon hardy while they're in season  and if a little juice gets on your chin and forearms like it did for us,  "so what"  watermelons are a healthy wholesome food, and you are supposed to have fun eating them aye.

Coleman Schell

Roastener's

Summer time is the time when you can enjoy  tender  fresh corn on the cob, glistening with butter and sprinkled with salt.

Growing up in the South, I could hardly wait for sweet corn to produce its first  ears  in summer.

Our family called sweet corn  roastener's, others refer to them as, corn on the cob either way is o.k.  I reckon because sweet corn is good no matter how you fix it .

Dad  planted his corn patch  as close to the house as possible, so he could  keep an eye on it,  for some reason birds and raccoons loved sweet corn about much as people, and if you weren't careful they would take more than their fair share when it got ripe

Mother liked fixing boiled and fried corn for the family, I for one couldn't get enough,when she made it

She fried corn more often than she boiled it, because  her and Dad hadn't  many front teeth left by then and it was challenging for them to bit corn from the cob.

Us kids didn't have any problems when we found ourselves face to face with a buttery  salted ear of corn, we were much  like a type writer zig-zaging back and forth across the ear  until it was  devoured.

My sister Shirley who is diseased now,  learned  corn frying form mother and  everyone said, Shirley's fried corn was as good as Mother's or maybe even better if that was possible.

Over the years as we had our family get together's Shirley was voted often, to fix her  tasty corn for a side dish.

A pan of  corn bread.....some fresh green beans with boiled potatoes..... ripe tomatoes.....sliced cucumbers.....fried or boiled corn.....will  get your taste buds cranking like no other food on the planet, if you're a country boy like me. 

Coleman Schell

Mother's Apron

Most of the time Mother wore an apron at home and I'm pretty sure she learned the habit from her mother, Grandma Parman, who I remember always had on a  apron. 

 In the olden days, women’s dresses were worn more than once before laundering, so a apron was worn to protect the dress, but women found many other uses for their aprons.

In my day women sewed most of their aprons from flour sacks.

I can just see  Mother in the kitchen as she gathered up the folds of her apron to pick up handles of hot pans and iron skillets.  If the day was particularly hot, she might pull the underside of the apron up and wiped her brow.

Aprons also came in handy as a container for , bringing eggs in from the nests, and a convenient “container” for bringing in vegetables picked in the garden. 

 After shelling peas and beans, the apron was handy for delivering hulls outside for the hogs and chickens.

If Mother was  outside in the hot sunshine she , sometimes pulled the  apron from her waist and put it over her head to protection her from the sun.  

While sitting on the porch in the cool of the evenings, she'd  pull the apron up over her arms to keep them warm, or she might use the apron to wrap up a toddler in her lap to rock it to sleep.

Today we have our handy “wipes” and other fancy cleaning gadgets , to polish the furniture, but with a wave of the apron, Mother could whisk the dust off our meager furniture  in a hurry when she saw company coming.

The apron was a hiding place for shy children to get  under when company came to visit,  I also remember Mother saying a few times, “I’m going to turn you over my apron,” and us kids knew what she meant by that .

Mother's  apron dried tears from her children’s eyes, wiped off stains from their  faces with a little dampening of spit.  The  apron pocket served as a place for a handkerchief of some kind for runny noses, a safety pin for emergencies.

Just thinking of Mother and her aprons stir up a few old memories for me, makes me long  for another era, another world, another time when life was simple and just a new apron could make a woman happy.

Coleman Schell.

Dog Days

The period of dog days in Kentucky usually starts around the  1st of July and ends  mid- August.

A lot of things change during those days, when I was younger I remember Mother and Dad cautioning us about getting cuts of any kind on our feet, because it was easy for them to get infected, from the polluted and stagnated waters. 

You could easily get what they called dew poising  walking barefooted through grass in the early mornings,  especially if you had any cuts or scratches on your feet.

There were other unusual things about dog days that took place as well; keeping people on edge.

 It was said snakes go blind and will strike at anything during that time,  and if it rains the first day of the dog day period, it will rain each day afterwards.

If it didn't rain any during dog days,  wells could go dry, animals would became more lazy and cantankerous, and in many cases so would humans.

Insects were more plentiful then,  Farmers didn't preform any surgery's on animals, or cut their hay during dog days.

Needless to say with all these things going on we were cautious with what we did.

Despite of all the legends and myths of dog days, it seems they did occur each and every year about the same time, and people learned how to endure them .

Coleman Schell

 NOTABLE SUMMER RECOLLECTIONS 


When the clouds are gray, overhead  and the  birds stop their singing;  usually foretells that rain is coming.

And when the rain does arrive it can be ,rather sudden. 

During those kind of times in Kentucky where I was raised, you would often hear someone calling out, ‘the clothes, the clothes. They are almost dry!’

 Such an occasion presented an opportunity for us kid's  to sprint to help  Mother gather them in before they got wet.

Sometimes rains like these would last all day, making it just the kind of day, barefooted youngster's loved. 

Whether the rain was a down pour or a slow one , we  didn't mind.

 Because a little rain wasn't going to stop us from enjoying the day and getting our bare feet wet while it was raining

We knew the rain would end eventually and that we would need to look for something else to do later.

But for time being instead of honoring the ole saying  (work while the Sun is shinning), we played while the rain was raining.

(Catching Lightening Bugs) at night was a perfect thing for a bunch of adventurous kids in the Country to do.

When it got dark after a rain, the fireflies would  light up the yard, and that presented a challenge we weren't going to let waist, it was now time to get our Mason jars out (and the palm of your hands ready, to catch as many of them as you could.

Myths- Legends-Folklore about Lightening-bugs were common.

One par-tickler one we'd heard about was, It had been said that Native Americans smeared glowing lightning-bugs on their faces for decoration.

We never tried that one; thank God (but its a wonder we didn't), we did take some of them into the house while they were still in our jars and watch them flicker until we fell asleep. 

What simple ways to have fun, and be able to share it with your family and grand children later in life.

 Life doesn't have to be complicated someone has said, God gives us all we need to enjoy life; He leaves the fun part up to us.

Coleman Schell