Falling for Fall

Mike is not here right now to approve the title of this post, but I am sure he would give it an enthusiastic thumbs up (or at least a patronizing guffaw). If there's anyone who appreciates my corny sense of humor, it's him.

Fall in the Berkshires is, frankly, stunning. Watching the progression of green to red to orange to brown on the hillsides makes me want to pull over with the leaf-peepers and survey "our valley" as the girls call it. But as a local (albeit newly transplanted), I have to be cooler than that. And the photos never do the leaves justice anyway.

I have captured a few glimpses of these blissful fall days, when the sun still has the power to warm, but the smell of wood smoke has begun to hang in the air. (One of the first things Noemi usually says when we leave the house in the morning is, "I smell a wood fire," and I think how sweet it is for her to to grow up in a place where fall is synonymous with fireplaces and technicolor vistas. So sweet that I stop myself from telling her how horrible it is for her health. Protecting her innocence and all that.)

It's not an exaggeration to say that you can literally pick apples on every street corner in Williamstown and that even the Canada geese winging overhead refuse to poop until they've passed the town limits we are so picturesque (okay, maybe a slight exaggeration). I'll need this story (and these pictures) to keep me going through all the weeks I can't feel my toes.

October at Caretaker Farm

Picking herbs at Caretaker Farm

Yep, picking apples on the street corner

first time climbing a tree