2023, education, Family, gardening, Kids, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized, Weather

Fall

65 Comments

Yesterday was the first day of fall, and it was cool and cloudy, I noticed this week that the leaves were just starting to change color. The garden is finally slowing down. I am done canning tomatoes.

Fall has always been my favorite season. Not too hot, not too cold. (We won’t talk about the Ocober 5, 2005 snowstorm that shut the area down for three days and broke off hundreds of tree limbs.) I like the cooler nights.

Things at work always pick up in the fall, especially for those of us who work with children. Bad news at parent-teacher conferences means the phones start ringing at my agency from calls from frantic parents wanting help for their ornery children. Fall is a time of truth and reckoning for some of us.

What are your favorite things about fall? Any favorite fall songs or poems? Did your parents ever get bad news at parent-teacher conferences?

65 thoughts on “Fall”

  1. Yes, my favorite season also. Trees turning color, especially maples. The sun changes angle and the colors deepen. As you said, not too hot, not too cold. Sad part is shorter days, but not too short yet. I remember days walking to school, kicking through the leaves on the sidewalk. Loved doing it. Raking leaves into piles on the yard and jumping into them. Not me raking, just jumping. I still don’t rake, but not jumping anymore.  Cynthia “Life is a shifting carpet…learn to dance.”

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  2. I will be the first to tell you this: this year tomorrow is the first day of fall.
    When our kids were between the ages of about 5 and 12 on fall Sundays after church we would drive up into the forest, sometimes into the Forest, and have fall picnics. We have several pictures. of us at littel picnic grounds wearing warm jackets. Our 51 and 53 year old children have very fond memories of that.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  4. Cooler weather is my favorite part of fall. Second is the fall colors. Favorite fall song is “Autumn Leaves.” Can’t beat the Eva Cassidy version.

    Bad news for parents at conferences? *Scoff* I was the goodiest of goody-two-shoes you ever met. To this day, Mom still can’t believe how easy I was to raise.. 😉

    Chris in Owatonna

    Liked by 7 people

    Reply

    1. I enjoy Eva’s interpretation of so many songs. She just understood the songs. I also was the “goodiest” of kids, but I had little choice given my mom taught in the same elementary school I was in. The only complaints were that sometimes I chatted with friends too much and that my work was messy (as was my desk).

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

  5. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I love, love, love Autumn! It’s the colors, the crisp air and the smell of leaves. There are memories of High School Football, as well as Marching Band mingled in all of that, complete with hot apple cider. Places like AZ and CA without changing seasons just cannot live up to this.

    My mother, who I have complained about endlessly, would do a very nice thing in the autumn and it is a good memory. She would rake up all the leaves in the yard (with our help) into a giant pile. She bought marshmallows, cheap hotdogs, and buns and gathered long sticks and straightened hangers. Neighbor kids were invited to jump in the leaf pile. Then we would re-assemble the pile and light it on fire and have a hotdog and marshmallow roast. It was very fun and the cheap hotdogs tasted like smoke and burning leaves. This was in the days before burning bans when we had a burn barrel in the backyard and it was fine to burn a pile of leaves.

    Liked by 6 people

    Reply

  6. Son and Dil got a call from grandson’s kindergarten teacher this week to inform them he had stomped on a little frog on the playground, and some of his classmates were upset. Son and Dil had a very serious talk with him about empathy and that animals have feelings, too. Grandson was contrite. He is typically gentle and loving with animals, so they aren’t to worried they are rearing a sociopath.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  8. Cooler and crisp air, good sleeping weather, the changing leaves in all their glory – what’s not to love about Fall? As kids, we would rake the leaves into giant piles and jump into them, later burning them at the end of our dirt driveway. The neighborhood girls would also make leaf houses (outline the rooms using leaves). You had to go through the “doors” from room to room instead of just jumping over the “walls”. Like BIR, I still like to walk through piles of leave to hear them crunch.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  10. I’m not quite done with summer yet – spent some time outside yesterday doing battle with weeds and my old nemesis, the creeping charlie. It was a glorious day here in the Twin Cities.

    That being said, whichever season is newly upon us is always my favorite; in a week or so fall will be my new favorite. Like several baboons have already mentioned, the sound of crunching leaves underfoot is part of the season for me.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  11. Only once did a parent-teacher conference go sideways on me. When I was in fifth grade, my teacher, Mrs. McCracken told my parents that although I was getting high grades, she knew I could be doing better/working harder. The classic “not working up to her potential line”. My dad in particular took this message to heart. This really rankled me at the time and continues to do so all these decades later. Most of my life I’ve wanted balance. I don’t want to be all work or all play. I don’t want to be constantly happy or constantly sad. Even in fifth grade I knew down deep that I didn’t want to work harder at school. Mrs. McCracken is, to this day, my least favorite teacher. Unfortunately they rolled our class over so I had her for sixth grade as well. Aarrgghh.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  12. YA had a year of frightful parent teacher meetings. For some reason, her kindergarten teacher did not like her. And I felt this from the very first night at the pre-school year tour – something was just not right. (I’ve always wondered if she didn’t like me and transferred it to YA or didn’t like the single-parent-biracial family thing -never did figure it out). Anyway, at our first conference she had a big post-it note on the file that said GUN in big letters. She told me that YA had told kids we have a gun at our house. YA has always denied this. I got called in another time to meet w/ teacher (and the principal AND the social worker) because YA had poked another kid with the cap of a ballpoint pen. Apparently if you use the cap of a ballpoint pen, it’s considered a weapon and there is special protocol for handling that.

    Needless to say, after YA got out of kindergarten, all her conferences went swimmingly. She was a good enough student, although she never worked as hard as she could (I NEVER touched that with a ten-foot pole!) and all her teachers liked her.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

      2. I could give you a list of about those that went sideways from the teacher point of view. Parents who accused me or all teachers of being lazy, perverts, overpaid, child abusers, hated their child, etc. One of my colleagues was assaulted by a mother. Drunk parents. Parents who brought in the child and attacked them verbally in front of me. A mother who had a nervous collapse at the conference.
        Clyde (WP has figured out that on my computer I am not registered)

        Liked by 3 people

        Reply

        1. That’s part of the reason that YA’s kindergarten year was so awful.. I know that teachers need all the allies they can get. Ask any of YA’s other elementary school teachers – I was a great ally. Helped on all field trips, volunteered in library, did music appreciation and crafts in the classroom. That teacher really missed out by not liking my child!

          Liked by 2 people

    1. I appreciate the climate and beauty of fall as much as anyone but I find there’s a wistful melancholy that goes with it, a sharper sense of time passing than in any other season.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      1. I agree, Bill.

        My mom was always saddened when the berries on the mountain ash trees turned orange; they reminded her of the winter that would soon follow.

        This should be interesting! Below this message it reads: “Leave a reply. (log in optional)” I have never seen that before. Will I show up as Anonymous or as PJ? We shall see.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

  16. I love the CHANGE of seasons; Spring and Fall are my favorite I think. I am a little annoyed that it’s almost dark by 7PM. and Kelly really doesn’t like that.
    Has it been decided yet; is the time changing or not anymore??

    I don’t recall any bad student teacher conferences. For either us or the kids. Well, daughter, just because of her, out-of-the- ordinary needs at school, we did have to (wanted to) shake a couple teachers to get them up to par. But I guess nothing serious.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

      1. Right. Some people, cough cough (Choir!) cough cough, just didn’t / couldn’t have or take the time. And daughter didn’t care. And we could have made a bigger fuss about it. But we didn’t like him either so…
        Beth Ann helped us a lot back then; and she really encouraged us to push for services. And the important (to us) stuff, we did.

        Liked by 4 people

        Reply

        1. Good for you. Most school personnel are terrific, but when there is a stinker and that is you child you are dealing with, it can be really frustrating.

          Liked by 2 people

    2. Keeping clocks the same year-round passed the Senate but the House is bogged down with investigations into Hunter Biden’s pictures, M&Ms, and Paul Pelosigate. Sooooo busy!

      Liked by 4 people

      Reply

      1. I think people who support leaving the clocks on daylight savings time in Minnesota will regret it when the sun doesn’t rise until something like 8:45 a.m. in December. They seem to think they’re somehow going to get more daylight. We have about 8 1/2 hours of daylight here no matter how you set your clock. I for one will not be able to get out of bed in the winter if they do this.

        Liked by 3 people

        Reply

  20. Fall is my favorite time of year too. I like spring too, but fall is my favorite. Clear blue skies on sparkling September mornings with a little mist rising off the area lakes; a colorful leaf or two here and there at first, then a rising crescendo of color. The sweet smell of leaves in the woods. I like that the ground is a little drier for hiking in the fall, versus being muddy in the spring. I like the cooler temps too, of course. I was a really good girl in grade school.

    The only negative thing that I remember being corrected on was daydreaming. I was accused of looking out the window. I guess that’s part of who I am. I still look out the window and like my thoughts wander. Learning to focus came later, with the hard stuff. School was easy for me. I also had the comment that I wasn’t working up to potential. When I think about it, I don’t think I ever really did.

    My favorite fall song is Joni Mitchell’s Urge for Going but I like Mary Black’s version.

    OT: WP has changed the window where you log in.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a comment