The Perfect First of Autumn

"The morns are meeker than they were, 

the nuts are getting brown; 

the berry's cheek is pumper,

the rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf, 

the field a scarlet gown."

- Emily Dickinson, "Leaves"

    One of the many known facts about me is that I absolutely, positively, LOVE fall. I've always been in love with sweaters, pumpkins, apples, leaves, hayrides and everything that deals with fall. I find such absolute beauty in it from the way the wind seems to blow differently, to the smell of all things pumpkin spice, the joy I see on my little sisters' faces when we carve pumpkins. I love taking walks just when the leaves are changing colors and falling on the sidewalks. I love the multiple fall festivals and I love the fellowship it seems to have about it. I just love fall so much!

     Now as many of you may know, the first day of Autumn was today, and what a perfect day is was for me! Although, I was caught it shorts and a t-shirt (no sweaters in this 82 degree weather), it was beautiful. The fog rolled across the hill of back campus like a picturesque movie and the wind gave a soft whisper in my ear as I and my friends and peers piled into the school van. We were headed to help out the Chester County Food Bank with apple picking. I couldn't have been more excited! It was the perfect day!!

     We pulled up and right away half of us were pinned as not having the proper attire. Oops, didn't get that memo. The only reason we were meant to have pants though is because of poison ivy. Most of us didn't care, so we picked apples anyway. It often seems that the best things are high up and out of reach. The same happened with the apple. The best and the brightest of the apples were at the tops of the highest trees. What the normal person would do would be grab a ladder to reach. What we did was climb on each other's shoulders to pick the highest apples. We actually got the job done faster that way!!

     After three hours of straight apple picking, three bee stings (or kisses, as I like to call them), lots of laughter, tons of pictures and bushels of good fun, we picked over 2800 pounds of apples that day!! It was more than they had picked all week!! I guess with 13 people, we can really get a job done!! It seemed like such a perfect day, picking apples. But my Fall Fun wasn't over yet. 

     When we got back to school, my dear friend and I decided to don our aprons and go on a baking spree. Inspired by the apples we picked, we decided on some fall flavored fun foods, like pumpkin spice cookies and banana bread. YUM! For two and a half hours we baked and baked and baked. There are so many pros to baking in our dorm building. Not only do we get to have fun with each other while baking, we also get to feed to the hungry friends and sisters and share the joy. Being domestic, we decided, is one of our favorite hobbies. I can honestly say that in less than 24 hours, almost all but few cookies are gone!

     While baking with my Aproned Queen Partner in Crime, we decided a few things. One: All of our recipes that we've made in the past year and the next few years HAVE to go in a recipe book, that we are going to make my hand!! Because you know, we never do anything NOT from scratch!! Two: if we could change the world by baking for people, we would bake all the time. Three: Sister Cathy always gets first dibs on tasting. Four: There should always be a plate of something homemade somewhere!!! There's a beauty in that! 

      And so, the perfect first day of fall ended not just with providing the hungry with 2800 pounds of apples for apple sauce, but baking a bundle of fun for some many!! Oh how I wish I could bake all day, every day!!! 

Innovative way to get those apples at the top.

These overly friendly, kissing friends.

Thumbs up for 2800 pounds of apples.

"Even Jesus picks apples."

My beautiful RA catching apples!!

Pumpkin Spice cookies!!!

The Two Beautifil Aproned Baking Queens

The taste-testers!!