Fall season went without even an prologue.  The last day of the Summer was September 22 and just like that, nature seemed to call for the last train towards Summer Paradise and all that was left were vibrant oranges in pumpkins and trees. The tree were like ladies ready to change her flowery dress into a deeper and warmer evening gown.  The season waved it’s last goodbye. All that we have left were a few yellow Crysanthemums and Hydrangeas that turned into beautiful faded pink. The streets now littered with dead leaves beckoned the dead cold winter. The flower once vibrant now bowed and faded. The green grass in our backyard stopped growing which gave us a welcome break from mowing, a gesture of peace from the impending snow ploughing in the coming months. The long nights were expected as the days grow shorter and shorter and sunlight get dimmer, hazier and rises later.

The only day of the year where day and night are of equal lenght is at the Autumnal Equinox. It is the most balanced day of the year. Autumnal Equinox, a phrase I am quite unfamiliar of when I lived in the land of relatively changeless season except for the occassional storm showers, is passage of the Sun on the equator, moving southward. Which means the Northern Hemisphere, where the US is located is away from the sun, thus changing the season from Summer to Autumn and Winter.

Here are some pictures I’ve taken of early Autumn:

Echinacea - scientifically known as Echinacea Purpurea is a medicinal plant that is used to fight colds and is used as immuno-boosters. My mother-in-law planted this coneshaped flower in my garden bed long before we moved into this house. A lot of our neighbors comment on the medicinal use of this plant but I have yet to figure out how to extract it’s juices, figure out which part is edible or poisonous, make it into tea  or better yet gather enough courage to try it. The to do list os experiments I need to try is the Poppy plant on the other side of the porch which is rumored to have hallucinagenics and would cost you a failed drug test. Thanks flowerbed, but I think I’ll pass.

Hydrangeas are my favorite flowers.Too bad they are not edible. When I first saw a hydrangea plant i thought it looked messy and akward and too leafy. It seems like it described most people I know including myself. But I fell in fond with the Hydrangea Macrophylla when a lady-who-was-once-married-to-the-best-friend-of-my-husband-who-is-now-married-to-someone-else-but-still-sees-his-son…you get the point, another long story, gave me a starter plant to my then new flowerbed.

A few months after, they divorced, I don’t think it was because of this flower though. But I’ve kept the plant for a long time. I even dug it and transferred it to our new home much to the new homeowner’s chagrin. These are some tips to take care of your Hydrangeas to prep for Winter:

• Prune Hydrangea bush before it gets really cold outside. You can cut it near the base of the largest branch. Hydrangeas are hard to kill bushes.
• Fertilize it before the ground freezes
• You can put used ground coffee on the soil before the autumn leaves cover your flowerbed. The used coffee grounds serve as the acidic supplement for the plant allowing for more vibrant blooms the next year. Some genus type of Hydrangeas even changes its color from a dark blue to deep purples and pinks depending on the acidity of the soil.

Autumn is also a time to gather all the harvest for the season. This year, my kids and I were invited to pick some apples from our friends’ backyard. By some I mean bags and bags and bags of apples. The numbers in the bag kept growing exponentially as we chatted, talked about the recent economic crisis, shushed the kids’ yelping, hollering and crying by constantly tripping over fallen apples. When I took it home, Chocolat had the time of her life in this photoshoot:

After I made homemade applesauce, dried chewy apples and apple chips–much like how you make banana chips, and ate some raw, we were appled out.  We are grateful though for the free apples we got this fall. We probably have used up our Percent Yearly Value at the back label of these apples.

And my husband and my kids had a Pumpkin Carving activity. It was my first, my kid’s first and definitely my husband’s first, even I could not believe it. We all learned that Pumpkins have an almost hollow core but for a few scraggly pumpkin veins with bunches of seeds. The seeds can be cooked like Butong Pakwang Maalat–Salty Watermelon Seeds.  If you are interested in apple recipes, Cobbler, pie, Applesauce, Pumpkin Pie and Salty seeds et al. I have tons of old Fashioned recipes I’d be willing to share, just leave a message on the comments area.

 I can smell the Turkey, the icon of all Fall and Thanksgiving. Winter is just around the bend. More picture opportunities to share with you. Happy Fall everyone.