My love affair with autumn...

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close-bosom friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel, to set budding more,

And still more later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For summer has oe-r brimmed their clammy cells.

First verse from the poem by John Keats.

I have always loved autumn. I guess, being a Queenslander, I'm always relieved to finally arrive at cooler days after the long, hot summer. And John Keats's poem has always been a favourite since my school days. 
Seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness... 

That opening line is so evocative, isn't it?

Here, in the Far North of Australia, our autumns aren't quite as Keats describes - we don't have apples or hazelnuts. But I live in the mountains, so we certainly have mists and we grow pumpkins and sweet potatoes (they count as gourds??)

  and we have a tree laden with  macadamias.

We do have afternoons where the sun still lingers, but now the days are shortening, I'm starting to think about making soups and about collecting fallen pine cones - they're such great firestarters.

And while your'e here, I thought I'd show you a scene of my favourite view (and tree), painted by a young cousin, Carmen Hannay. Check out Carmen's website.  Isn't she brilliant? Her work is diverse and gorgeous and she's just leaping from strength to strength.

My kids commissioned her to produce this painting for a significant birthday ( quite a few years back now) and I love it. Carmen really captured the whimsical feel of the landscape without ever having been here.

What's autumn like at your place? Do you have lots of gorgeous colour? Or what's your favourite season? I'd love to hear.