Apples harvested at Bealtaine Cottage last year…you can tell it’s from 2010 as the walls are now blue…though I may repaint them soon, as I mix my own colours and feel a creative moment or two approaching!

Bring forth the raisins and the nuts-
Tonight All-Hallows’ Spectre
struts
Along the moonlit way.
~John Kendrick Bangs

Of course, Apples are the signature of Samhain/Halloween…where would we be without the Apple Ducking Game or the Toffee Apple, or, best of all…the Apple Pie?

Mushrooms are yet another signature of Samhain…

   There is something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all the
dispassionateness of a disembodied soul, and something of its inconceivable
mystery.  ~Joseph Conrad

And the exquisite colours of the leaves…

Stir the fire till it lowe
How like a queen comes forth the lonely
Moon
From the slow opening curtains of the clouds
Walking in beauty to her
midnight throne!
~George Croly

Little beats the delight of walking though deep piles of Autumn leaves on a crisp, sunny day, with a chill in the air!

The foliage has been losing its freshness through the month of August, and here and
there a yellow leaf shows itself like the first gray hair amidst the locks of a
beauty who has seen one season too many.  ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

There is definitely magic at this time of year as we descend towards Samhain and Midwinter…  

 For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together.  For nature, it is
a time of sowing, of scattering abroad.  ~Edwin Way Teale

Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,
Blossomed the lovely
stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
Evangeline