Seasons Converging & Edwards Apple Orchard {favorite finds friday}

It is that time of year - when anticipation propels us forward - when seasons are converging.

There is no other season for which I feel the anticipation that autumn creates.  The coming of other seasons are marked to greater and lesser degrees by different feelings; but I feel a subtle longing for the arrival of autumn that is unmatched.  As the days grow shorter and the nights steadily cooler, it is as if nature is ushering us back inside; readying us for the coming season of hibernation. 

Perhaps we are programmed by this anticipation.  In youth, autumn is a season of beginnings - school starts, we progress through grades, a ritual that seems to mark the progress of our lives.  We change schools.  We graduate and the autumn that follows is our first beginning on our own. 

We have come to anticipate change.  A nervous excitement that signals something new.  I experience that newness now in enveloping atmosphere, in a return to the intimacy of the home, in the turning inward that marks preparation. 

Harvest, it is the gathering in of the crops.  The beginning of regeneration - a movement from out to in. As we move inward we seek solace and community.  We seek to be gathered together.  There is no more beautiful a place to be gathered together at this time of year, in this part of the world than Edwards Apple Orchard. 

It has been a regional gathering place for fifty years.  Ushering and marking the changing of seasons, issuing a cry to pilgrimage; join us here. 

They feature acres of apple orchards, pumpkin fields and berry picking, both self-pick.  They offer wagon rides through the orchard, and pony rides.  On weekends, a collection of bluegrass musicians fill the air with an uplifting melody, and the baked potato tent is open for service.

It is a family destination and a girlfriends retreat. 

I love the mutual opportunity to experience this moving of seasons both outside and in.  Their shop and café capture the longing of the imagination, providing sustenance and collections to complement one's experience.

And don't leave without an apple donut.  You must not leave with out an apple donut.  Or a dozen.

This place is a harvesting of experience.  Its' opening is something anticipated.  It is a reflection and a fostering of our longing for the next season. 

It is a place where we record our memories both in print and in our minds.  A place that has become a tradition for generations.  It has become a tradition for my family in the five short years we have lived here. 

The coming of autumn is the season of anticipation.  It signals our season of coming together. 


With gratitude,
Joanna