Autumn has come...

Summer is over and autumn is in the land. The colors are shifting from green to yellow, orange, red and brown and you can find something to eat everywhere.

wine leaves in its' autumn dress

I love the third season. There is still much energy left from summer, but somehow the world calms down a bit.

Nature is showing herself in one of her most beautiful dresses.

Here in this video, I'm sharing some beautiful autumn impressions with you that I caught on camera on some of my walks:

And when you're outside for a walk you can find something to eat almost everywhere.

These days I have been outside with my children to collect mushrooms.

A birch mushroom which grows under one of our birches

But of course you have to be careful! Some mushrooms look very similar to eatable ones, but are actually toxic. Just like this one here:

This is the toxic mushroom 'knoll agaric'

It looks very similar to the 'Champignon de Paris', but is, in fact, a toxic mushroom, called 'knoll agaric'.

If you are not very familiar with, the different kinds of mushrooms you definitely shouldn't collect them on your own.

This year we have LOTS of mushrooms: big ones, small ones, eatable ones, toxic ones... some that I know and some that I don't know, like these tiny little cuties:

Don't know the name of these, but I love their filigree appearence.

We also have lots of apples, pears, plums, and walnuts. Autumn is really a rich season in every way! There are so many fruits and nuts everywhere and there is also a lot of rain.

We really needed that rain, because the summer had been very dry, again.

So now it's been raining for days...

And sometimes I feel a bit depressed because of these many gray days. But then I try to remember that nature really needs the rain and that we can be thankful for it.

I once made a little video in which I tried to capture the beauty of rain and wanted to express my thankfulness towards it.

If you want you can watch it here:

What I also like about autumn is that it's such a cozy time, when you start to make fire in the stoves again, drink a warm tea while sitting on the couch with a woolen blanket...

The nights are growing longer and the days shorter. Right now it is becoming dark outside by 7 o'clock in the evening. In summer it was still bright day at this time of the day.

And as the days are getting shorter and nature is preparing herself to rest for winter, we the humans, too, go more within. I feel like autumn and winter are times when we are living more 'inside' - not only that we are literally living more inside our houses and go less outdoors, but we also live more the inner life of our hearts and souls.

It's a time of reflecting ourselves, calming down, resting and restoring our energies.

We are ordering our thoughts and feelings, so that we will blossom again in our full beauty and potential in springtime, just like the rest of nature is doing so. We are part of this cycle, too.

I'm wishing you all a wonderful autumn season with many cozy hours!

Yours,

Sarah