This is the second Thanksgiving that RJ and I are spending together but not with our respective families. The first took place in Texas in November 2003. I was attending grad school and RJ was driving all over hell for his consulting job. We sat in my little studio apartment eating steak and drinking beer. Eight years later we will be spending Thanksgiving with other friends in Indy who have families in distant states like New York, Pennsylvania and yes, Texas.

This morning I will be participating int this event:

I feel a 2.5 mile run justifies the food I will consume later on.

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-eves 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 o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? 
  Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, 
  Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, 
  Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
    Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep 
  Steady thy laden head across a brook; 
  Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
    Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? 
  Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 
  And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 
  Among the river sallows, borne aloft
    Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; 
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 
  Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
  The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft, 
    And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

~John Keats 

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to officially say goodbye to autumn. I always feel that after Thanksgiving winter is whistling in the eaves and I can already feel the temperature dropping. Fall is my favorite season and this fall was especially lovely, so a few images to send fall out on a good note. See you in 2012.

Squash blossoms.

Pumpkins at the orchard.

Goldenrod on a walk in our neighborhood.

Ashley likes cider. Also, you should read her blog.