Good-bye and Hello!

“It is harvest time. A sense of completion and accomplishment enwraps the land.”  It is at this season that we “kiss” good-bye to summer.  Autumn is the “walkway” between summer and winter.  We (in the northern hemisphere) are slowly being invited into the season of Autumn with cool nights, early sunsets, completion of the growing season, summer flowers’ dried stems and leaves are now slowly bowing to be received into earth’s embrace, numerous grey skies are part of our daily experience, Canadian Geese flying south, people turning inward both physically and mentally with the struggle to deal with more hours of darkness than light.
 It is also the conclusion of the regular baseball season, however, we still have the World Series Championships to go through in October.  Then we are in the midst of football season - would you believe me if I told you that sometimes in churches that homilies are shortened or not preached at all so folks can watch the games?

But with all of this, it is time to put a little slow in our hurry and create a litany of gratitude for all that has been over this season of summer.  I place here a few quotes about autumn to ponder and one of my favorite poems by Robert Frost.
I also have provided you a link to a Harvest Bread – it is the season of apples, zucchini, and pumpkins, oh my.  May you be blessed.
http://www.yummly.com/recipe/Fall-Harvest-Apple_spiked-Pumpkin-Bread-Recipezaar?columns=3&position=4%2F57

Quotes of Autumn:
Autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons. ~Jim Bishop

Winter is dead; spring is crazy; summer is cheerful and autumn is wise! ~Mehmet Murat ildan
In autumn, don't go to jewelers to see gold; go to the parks! ~Mehmet Murat ildan

O' pumpkin pie, your time has come 'round again and I am autumnrifically happy! ~Terri Guillemets
Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. ~Albert Camus
I loved autumn, the one season of the year that God seemed to have put there just for the beauty of it. ~Lee Maynard

Autumn is the hush before winter. ~French Proverb

Poem: A Leaf Treader by Robert Frost
I have been treading on leaves all day until I am autumn tired
Lord knows all the color and form of leaves I have trodden on and mired
Perhaps I have put forth too much strength or been too fierce from fear...
I have safely trodden underfoot the leaves of another year
All summer long they were overhead more lifted up than I
To come to their final place in earth they had to pass me by
All summer long I thought I heard them whispering under their breath
And when they came it seemed with a will to carry me with them to death
They spoke to the fugitive in my heart as if it were leaf to leaf
They tapped at my eyelids and touched my lips with an invitation to grief
But it was no reason I had to go because they had to go...
Now UP MY KNEE to keep atop another year of snow.