Autumn Leaves, Buckeyes & Chestnuts!

Autumn is coming! I like that word better than "Fall". The word "autumn" conjures up not just visions, but smells, tastes, sounds, and how things feel in my hands.

I was the official family raker after my sister and brother left home. It was a chore that didn't feel like a chore. We had a very large maple tree in the backyard that produced about a billion leaves, and we had two buckeye trees out front that produced not only leaves, but buckeyes as well. The backyard was harder to rake because of the grass. The tines of the rake would get caught in the twisted blades of grass. Each stroke had to be repeated many times to get the leaves to move to the collection pile. Hard work for my little muscles! But to see that mighty pile of leaves was wonderful! The musty smell was perfume to my nose. I would run and do a flying sprawl into the middle of that pile and land with a soft thump. Then I would recline with my arms and legs splayed like a spider's appendages, first on my face, then on my back. Leaf dust up my nose, in my hair, all over my clothes, inside my shoes, everywhere. It clung like some magnetic dust and made me sneeze. It crackled like a dry fire in my ears.

When I was done glorying in this huge pile, I would load bushel baskets with the leaves, and dump them into the incinerator at the end of the lot. Then, using many matches, all those beautiful leaves would be lit. Great clouds of autumn smoke wafted their way through the neighborhood as well as through my clothes and hair and skin. I would watch the fire from a few feet away, at the grape arbor, and suck on the sweet skins of the concord grapes that grew there.

The next day, I would stroll home from school, grab the rake and matches and begin raking the front sidewalk and the leaves on the street also. No, there were no mechanical street sweepers, just me. This raking was much easier because the rake passed cleanly over the macadam and the brick sidewalk. These leaves and buckeyes, were piled over the iron grate where storm water escaped and flowed to the river about three blocks away. Since there was air under the pile, the fire was always fast-burning. No worrying about hauling the ashes either since they just disappeared down the grate and were washed to the river with the next rain. One of the "perks" of this raking was seeing and hearing the buckeyes explode as they reached a certain temperature.

Not every leaf was burned or buckeye sacrificed to explode, however. Leaf and buckeye were always collected and gazed upon for days. Eventually, the bright yellow, red and green leaves would dry to a crisp and buckeyes would mold. Many was the time my mother found brown dust stuck between two sheets of white paper on my desk, and black sticky moldy buckeyes in the pockets of my pants where they had been forgotten. It must have been the beautiful mahogany color and large tan "eyes" of the buckeyes that fascinated every child in town because we used to show our collections off to anyone who would look at them. These were never eaten, as we were told that this particular chestnut was poisonous.

Edible chestnuts, however, were available just up the street from our house. Charlie Marks had a tree in his backyard and every year, I would knock on his door and ask him if I could gather some and he would allow me to enter his yard. The chestnuts came enveloped in thick green and very prickly skins and if you wanted the chestnut, you had to stomp on the green skin until it broke open and revealed the brown chestnut inside. That too had a hard shell on it which had to be picked open with fingernails and then the fuzzy inside skin had to be picked off as well. (Now I use a knife) When Charlie realized how much I loved chestnuts, he would frequently knock on OUR door and hand me a small bag of them. They have a very unique flavor, which can be different with different species. I have to buy them at the grocery store today, and when I get the same species as Charlies', I am transported back to Charlie's bag of nuts and that special flavor I loved so much.

Come to think of it, chestnuts took alot of work to enjoy! But they were worth all that effort!

As for leaves, we have two large maple trees and two small Japanese maple trees in our front yard today. I love walking over the leaves and hearing the wonderful crackling, crunching sound underfoot. But I can't enjoy the smell of the burning leaves, as that's not permitted where we live. I have to be contented with collecting the most beautiful leaves and smelling the dry ones (unburned). My son gets to be the raker now, but he finds it just "work". Times change.

Which Corn is Best??

What a dilemma!!! So many farm markets from which to choose my corn-on-the-cob!

I decided to get an ear from each one and went home with 6 ears of corn--some white, some yellow, and some mixed. I marked the fat end of each cob and dropped them into the pan. About 10 minutes later, I put them on a platter to cool off a little. Then came the taste test. One had not been fresh pulled, so it had an "off" taste--too starchy. One was very sweet and did not have that familiar "corny" flavor--not to my liking. One had kernels that were too small so I couldn't get enough in my mouth to really taste the corn. One had kernels that were too big and left the tough outside of the kernels still in my mouth, even after much chewing--not good. One was not filled out from end to end--unacceptable. And then there was the perfect ear of white corn--just pulled, completely filled out end to end, mid-sized kernels, and a sweet but "corny" flavor! YUMMY! And to think I bought it less than a block from my house!!!! Stevie's corn was the best!!! and still is!!!