Preparing for Fall

As I sit sipping my chai latte at a local coffee shop, I am reminded that the autumn season is coming. I love where I live with the change of the 4 seasons Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. I guess my attention span is too short to have fewer seasons. I am more excited in greeting a new season, than saddened by saying goodbye to one. My summer has been wonderful, but I have been craving what I call “Soup Season”. The cooler nights wrapped in a blanket with a lit candle and a movie on the television. As my daughter says, it curates a certain vibe.

Autumn also presents a long to do list as we pack up our summer into plastic bins and store it away in the shed until next May. My garden harvest winds down as the grapes on my vine ripen. Even with my small garden I still have tomatoes, beans and carrots to can and freeze for future meals and soups. This week I have been reminding myself how to make grape jam with a few missteps, but the outcome looks hopeful. Soon the float pool will be emptied and packed away and the water fountain will be silenced. I still have another month for dinners and a glass of wine on the deck. Then I make the shift to warm chai lattes in the morning on the deck. Well to be honest I started that morning ritual as soon as the mornings were less than 60 degrees. It is such a peaceful way to start the day.

Our fall to do list has 27 items on it and we are making our way through it. Most items are small such as staking the new trees and removing old towel hooks from the lower patio. There are some larger items on it as well such as moving the firewood and building a retaining wall for the driveway. I remember when I was pregnant and towards the end of my 9 month, I was preparing the baby’s room, froze some meals and washed all of the baby items and it was told by a nurse that I was ”nesting”. I don’t need to be pregnant to nest, I do it every season as I prepare for the season to come. This season has added a few more tasks to the to do list as we are preparing to have our home sided the end of September. Preparing our ”retirement” home is almost complete! After the siding and driveway retaining wall, we are finally down to one item, a new driveway. Then our retirement home will be complete only needing on going maintenance. It has been a 6 or 7 year process to get the long list down. I can hardly believe we are almost down with the upgrades and home repairs.

One thing we have noticed with all our travels this summer, when we are home our time our weekends are filled with completing the to do lists. While many people attended fairs, picnics and camping over Labor Day weekend, we were moving wood and cleaning the garage. It is the price we pay for traveling every two weekends and it is worth it.

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