Sunflowers, Pumpkins and Apples

A field of very large, yellow faces stood tall in rows and invited us yesterday to share the warm, yellow afternoon sun with them. Indian Summer in northern Germany! Sunflowers of many types, each in their own rows, greeted us cheerfully as bees nibbled on their seeds. Yellow petals with yellow centers, yellow with dark centers, oversized centers, small centers, orange and yellow fire-like petals, flowers that had already burnt up in the sun. The three of us had the field to ourselves, strolling in and around. It was a pick-your-own blooms field, and we assembled a lovely bunch to take back. "Daddy, let me try to cut!" our five year old asked. She knelt down and freed her favorite flowers from their spot, and put them with the others in her little hand. We also wandered through the pumpkin patch. A real pumpkin patch! Did the Great Pumpkin live here?  All kinds of pumpkins grew here in rows, the large light orange carving pumpkins for Jack-o-Lanterns, the rich, deep colors of the Hokaido pumpkins we use for our fall and winter soups, the white small pumpkins, the yellow and white squash, and the multi-colored small decoration pumpkins. We selected the shapes and colors that we found delightful and we loaded up the back of the wagon.

We drove further through the countryside and found a gorgeous, old, stone farmhouse with an apple orchard. We pulled over and took out a large sack and started gathering rich, brown, shiny chestnuts from under large tree.
Little one loved finding chestnuts still in their shells with the pointy, pokey spikes all around. She would carefully open them and pull the chestnut out of the soft inner flesh. We shared a crisp apple from the orchard while we moved on to the next chestnut tree. Husband lifted little one way up into the tree so she could pick the chetsnuts right off of the branches. We laughed and laughed when he would hang from the tree and perform a hanging dance to get the chestnuts to rain down on us. We drove back home with our car loaded with the colors and textures of fall- deep orange, golden yellow, apple red, and mahagony brown. We made "tablescapes"  outside and in. We could almost feel the warm sun on our faces when we looked into the sunflowers on the long wooden table.