I Am Grateful For...These Final Days of Autumn

29 :: These Final Days of Autumn

As the days grow shorter and shorter, I am grateful for these final days of Autumn. Today, we soaked in a beautiful Florida Fall day at a local, family-owned farm and produce market. I stocked up on spaghetti squash (which we ate for dinner with homemade tomato sauce) and butternut squash (which I plan to use in Snip and Snail's Roasted Sage Butternut Squash recipe). Also among my goodies were some beautiful leeks and farm-fresh eggs that I will combine into a yummy quiche in the morning.

Selby enjoyed picking out peanuts that we will roast for snacks this week.

Our fruit selection included a variety of pears and a surprising find - Florida-grown strawberries! I've been patiently waiting for these gems to show up at the market, so an early crop delighted me. A sweet sign of the changing seasons.

Only a few remnants of the passing season remained around the farm, including a pumpkin "vase" in the country store and a jack-o-lantern photo opp.

One of the pumpkin patches we saw at our last visit was replaced with this lovely pond...

...the other had turned into a tent filled with Christmas trees! A few lonely piles of Indian corn were interspersed amongst the fragrant firs, visually reflecting the shift I felt inside. Only three short weeks away from Winter, I'm holding these final orange-tinted, pumpkin-flavored days of Autumn close... still counting their many blessings.