I told you I would write and tell you a bit about fall (autumn) in Minnesota. Incidentally we use the terms fall and autumn interchangeably... Fall is a lovely season.. Ideally the days are warm and pleasant (we use Farenheit here rather than Celcius and I am not sure of the conversion). The temp may run from the upper 60's to 75 or so... let's just say that the days are lovely... and the evenings are cool with a bit of a nip in the air.
We had an early freeze this year, which was a bad thing.. agriculturally speaking that is.. This part of Minnesota, like the area of Nebraska where I grew up, is definitely a farming community. This year the summer has been cool which slowed down the growing season. We had a killing frost about 3 weeks ago and it was a terrible blow to some of the farmers in this area. I don't know if you are at all familiar with the crops we raise here.. mostly corn and soybeans.. but they were still very green and after the frost were just blackened... a terrible sight to see to one like myself who is well aware of the reduced yields and inferior crop they will now produce.... luckily the freeze did not hit a large area so many people were spared. As a self employed person yourself, you would be well aware how this would affect all of the farmers who are involved.
But, this is not the wee bit that I really wanted to tell you about... It occurred to me as I was driving home the other day.. sometime after receiving your email about "where Ruby lives"... I do live on a lovely street my friend, and never more so than in the autumn.... As I turn off the main highway, I am driving down a street that is shaded by wonderful huge old trees. I am not familiar with all the names, but there are a lot of oaks, and many varieties of maple, interspersed with a few evergreens and many other kinds of trees as well.. Some of the trees are still summer green and of course the evergreens remain that lovely dark color evergreens tend to be. The grass is still very lush and green.. moreso now than in the summer even, as the weather is cooler and we have had recent rain. And in the yards some summer flowers are still blooming and the fall blooming ones now showing their colors. The colors I see are mainly bright yellow, brilliant orange, some sparkling white and rich deep shades of red.. Many of these same colors are now painting the big trees along my street and that is what I find the most beautiful of all.... All those many shades of trees far over head and hanging out into the street even... And under foot on the street some whisps of dry blowing leaves but in the yards under some of the trees, piles and piles of still brilliant leaves... mostly the yellow ones... My friend it is absolutely beautiful and I hope I am at least able to share with you with my words a wee bit of what I see with my eyes each day.
Now my friend, as you get closer to my house, we don't have the large trees anymore. My town is what I would call a "bedroom" community, meaning there are many people living here who drive into a nearby larger town to work each day. We have only been here about a year and a half, but it is plain to see that the town has grown a lot over the past 10 - 15 years... one sign is that all of the houses on the outside edge of town (all the way around) are newer homes.. Our house is about 12 years old which I consider old enough to have had at least some decent sized trees.... but apparently the people who built it did not plant any right away as the ones we have are only small. We live on a corner lot and if you go on past our house to the west there is only one more house before the cornfields begin.
Ruby's House
Our home, to my eyes at least is not a particularly good looking one on the outside... if is a plain rectangle.. 2 car attached garage... painted a kind of a gold color (which we plan to change to more of an ivory or soft light buckskin color next year hopefully). Most of the front of the house is faced with brick in varying shades of tan and brown and deep brown. There is a small open porch on the front (which I do like) with white railings and plain white boxy columns. And a basketball hoop over the garage of course. Round the back of the house we are fortunate enough to have a beautiful deck...
it is large, leading off of a sliding patio door from our dining room to the main part of the deck.. then a narrow part goes down the side of the house to the east end with a door there which goes into the mud room (just off of the kitchen). The deck used to be painted a fake redwood color (which I didn't like) and we repainted it to a nice dark brown color this past summer. We have a big area of yard out on the corner near the street, but only a tiny packet for a backyard and unfortunately have not yet figured out where to put a garden.. Along the front street side of the house (to the north) we had 4 trees, 3 quite small and one a little larger... As a mothers day present for myself, John and I picked out 3 more trees... two maples, one with green summer leaves and one with deep red summer leaves... to plant on the west side of the house which will give us good shade (lol in 20 years probably).. and a mineature pear tree to plant in the little wee bit of back yard...
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