Mindy Carlson

We are smack in the middle of October and fall is really here to stay.

The leaves are turning yellow and orange. The breeze is starting to become a cold wind. The Marroni sellers are showing up on the corners again, making the streets smell like roasting chestnuts.

I have the urge to buy apple cider and warm it on the stove.  There are little sugar pumpkins that call to me from the tables of the vegetable vendors in Marktplatz, begging to be made into pies and bars.

I am sipping tea every evening from my grandmother’s tea cup and starting to hunker down with cross-stitch and needlepoint work. The only thing missing is a cat on my lap.

It’s also this time of year that I read Charlotte’s Web and various Jane Austen novels. (And I watch the movies they made from those books.) As I walk through Basel the tune “Mother Earth and Father Time” from Charlotte’s Web keeps scrolling through my head.

How very special are we
For just a moment to be
Part of life’s eternal rhyme
How very special are we
To have on our family tree
Mother Earth and Father Time
He turns the seasons around
And so she changes her gown
But they always look in their prime
They go on dancing their dance
Of every lasting romance
Mother Earth and Father Time
The summer larks return to sing
Oh what a gift they give
Then autumn days grow short and cold
Oh what a joy to live
How very special are we
For just a moment to be
Part of life’s eternal rhyme
How very special are we
To have on our family tree
Mother Earth and Father Time

And in case you want to hear Debbie Reynolds sing it….

Happy Autumn.