Autumn 2

Descriptive Essay
March 8, 2012
Autumn: A Beautiful Season

Summer months are filled with the warmth of the sun, families going on vacations, swimming in cool lakes, and having barbeques with friends. Winter entices the inner child in us with the thought of ruthless snowball fights, sledding uncontrollably down steep hills, hitting the ski slopes, and building snowmen and snow angels. The season that is most appealing to me though, is fall. The beautiful transition between hot and cold, autumn brings vibrant colors, falling leaves, and marks an end to the productive summer season and signals the beginning of more baron and desolate winter months to come. Fall has arrived that first morning a person steps outside and feels the crisp, cool wind in his/her hair. The grass is wet, and he/she can smell the dew in the air. The sticky, hot and humid weather from weeks earlier transitions into moderate and refreshing temperatures. The cooler weather causes the green leaves to die, leaving them the electrifying colors of yellow, bright orange and red. Within time, the leaves start to slowly drift to the ground. They begin to pile onto the lawn, and the breeze begins to carry more and more each morning. Growing up, my mother would buy large garbage bags that, once filled with fallen leaves, would resemble a jack-o-lantern. She thought it was a fun way for my brothers and I to help rake all the leaves. I will never forget the smell of the wet, musty leaves as we raked them into large piles and then filled the jack-o-lantern bags. For many people, going to the pumpkin patch is a fall tradition. Children sit impatiently in the back seat of their parent’s car, asking repetitively if they’re there yet. As they approach the field that looks like a sea of a thousand orange pumpkins, the children become excited thinking about which ones they are going to take home with them. Every year my son insists on bringing home the one hundred pound pumpkin, which he cannot even fit his arms around. The gift shop is filled with fresh vegetables that were grown right there at the farm, and delicious ice cold apple cider pressed from their apple harvest earlier in the year.
Every October my husband and I take our children to the same camping ground located in Bucks County along the Delaware River. This trip always marks our last camping trip before we have to winterize our camper and put it away until the spring. We pack up our small pull along camper with all the essential supplies for making camping a little more comfortable. On Saturday nights, Mr. Shoemaker, the owner of the campground, invites all of the campers on a hay ride. Out of the barn comes Mr. Shoemaker on his old, rusty, tractor with smoke bellowing from the exhaust stack. The grin on his face is proof that he loves to see his guests full of excitement before the hayride. The tractor pulls the full trailer through long narrow trails along the river. As the sun starts to set, the cold air hits the children’s faces, making their cheeks turn red and their noses start to sniffle. Halloween approaches us fast in the month of October, with the sight of children dressed up in their creative costumes. Most little children are dressed as their favorite cartoon character; little girls are dressed as fairy princesses, carrying their wands and wearing tiaras. Boy’s deicide on super hero costumes like Spiderman or Batman. Older kids, who are allowed to go trick or treating without their parents, dress up as scary vampires with bloody fangs or as popular scary movie characters, like “Jason”, donning frightening masks and carrying fake weapons. Houses are all decked out in decorations, ranging from black and orange streamers and spider webs made from cotton to expensive fog machines with background lighting that can cost a small fortune. Intricate carved pumpkins are sitting proudly on doorsteps with little tea light candles burning inside. The sounds of all the children saying “Trick or Treat”, and cheering in excitement over how much candy they receive, echoes across every neighborhood.
Most importantly, fall also brings us the much anticipated holiday of Thanksgiving. This holiday means football, families yelling over each other at the dinner table, the Thanksgiving Day parade playing on television, and most importantly, massive amounts of food. There is nothing better than the smell of turkey roasting in the oven and finishing your meal with a piece of delicious warm pumpkin pie while enjoying the company of friends and family. In conclusion, summer may have come to an end, but fall is a season with many wonderful family traditions. The weather is comfortable and the scenery is beautiful. We must remember that fall is also the season that brings us one extra hour of sleep when daylight savings ends. Fall is a much needed intermission before the harsh and dreaded winter weather comes.