It's my favorite time of year back in Michigan for so many reasons. For starters, cooler weather is the best excuse for pulling sweaters, socks and heavy shoes out of the backs of the closets again.
These last two weeks of October may not always be the peak for watching the color change, but they're the best for walking around and shuffling your feet through the fallen leaves to kick up that great autumn smell. I always remember that my first campus tour at Albion was Halloween Day (wow - 1992?!?) and the leaves outside Fiske were about a foot deep. Even when Charles and I lived in San Francisco, where October weather is outstanding, I was acutely aware of the LACK of trees around us and missed Ann Arbor terribly.
It's also time for our annual pilgrimmage to Sweet Season's orchard in Concord. Each year we make at least one trip out to Ed & Nan Jasinowski's, ideally with a Michigan football game on the radio. We pick up at least a dozen donuts - plain, sour cream, pumpkin, apple and sugar, some still warm from the fryer - plus some cider for ourselves and the neighbors, apples for a pie and for sharing at the office, and pumpkins for the front porch. We eat too many donuts while we take the dog for a walk out in the orchard, and then come awfully close to finishing off the first dozen before we finish the drive back to Albion's campus. We walk the dog around campus, drive by the Coffee House, consider waking up and harassing the new resident-managers, lament how the sign Rob Ventura painted back in 1993 really needs to be fixed up, and head back to Ann Arbor.
I'm glad that the weather here in October seems so similar to Michigan's, but it's unfortunate that most of the trees are oaks. Instead of changing color and dropping leaves, they're just dropping acorns. (Yes, still.) And many of the leaves will remain dead on the trees until they get blown out in spring. I'm trying to find things particular to October in Drenthe to enjoy, but I'm coming up short. Maybe it will suffice that it's not yet winter. I understand there's plenty of rain and cold on the way!
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