Tiptoeing into fall

With the kids all grown, there's no more playing in pumpkin patches, no more picking out three pumpkins in small, medium and large, and no more annual discussions about the preferability of oblong vs. round. I miss those days.

They're obviously long past pumpkin picking – unless I drag Joe out of the house and get him to return to our favorite family-owned place, the one where the owners fill their driveway and barn with pumpkins and sit outside and where people pull their purchases to their cars in red wagons. (That's where we took the accompanying photo of Katie taking a break.)

With the smell of fall in the air, a lot of people have already decorated their houses with pumpkins, scarecrows, etc. There seem to be pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere. It's not as much fun without kids involved, but..

Today as I did my rounds of farm stands, one for bread, another for corn and the third for coffee cake, I stopped at some beautiful big mums and thought, why not? I bought a nicely shaped purple one and had to put my arms around it to carry it to the car.

In the garage, I found an old planter that fit the plant perfectly and put it on the porch. I stood back and admired it. This is my idea of minimalist seasonal decorating! You just need one thing to make you feel like you're partaking. And I guess you don't need to have a kid around to do a little something.