Fall Weekends

Weekends are a great time to recuperate and take time to share experiences with family and friends.

Way back when, in Virginia, fall weekends were for football games and a day out with Granddad and the great uncles.

Then in Vermont fall weekends were all about leaf peeping - driving around searching for the brightest, reddest, yellowest, orangest  leaves, stopping at ones favorite apple stand and gobbling up maple doughnuts.

Here in Bourdeilles we have to find other ways to celebrate fall days. There are no sports events  for miles and miles. The foliage colors will soon be golden and mahogany, but not worth driving around for - especially as there will be no apple stands along the country lanes where one can gobble up maple cream doughnuts - no scarlet robed maple trees for that matter.  Instead we join other couples and families at local plant sales. As you may recall this is a frenetic activity for us in the rush of spring days. Now in the fall we are less voracious about scooping up plants, we take time to visit with the vendors, we reflect long and hard about where any new plant will be placed in our developing gardens.

 

If it is a lovely sunny day Tom will do a quick shopping tour of the plants and then unpack his painting gear to capture the scene in a watercolor or two. 

I wander the plant stalls with a friend catching up on old news and oohing over new plants. There is time to observe fall  plants that would have been overlooked in the pastels colors of spring.

 

Fall in Bourdeilles does not have the crowded excitement of a big sports event, or the exhilaration of searching for mountainsides on fire with fall colors, but one still feels the glory of the season as we slow down and saunter through the colors of a fall garden.