Ah, autumn.

The autumn is here

In the mornings, when we cycle to school, it has been so cold outside for a few days that we have to wear gloves. In the afternoon, these are stuffed into our backpacks with a hat, scarf and fleece jacket. Now and again on the way home, I hear a quiet complaint of "I'm hot"; the sun is almost setting over the field, and I briefly mourn the summer.

There are summer people and winter people. And of course those who are happy with the temperature for about two days a year - otherwise it is either too hot or too cold for them :-). I am one of the summer people. I prefer 40 degrees to 14. Not to mention 4. That is why I mourn every summer inside. No matter how long and beautiful it was, every year it seems too short to me. I do summer farewell rituals with my family, like several "last" meals in the garden, toasting the summer with the "last" homemade smoothie made from local fruit, allowing our feet in the water one last time at the lake, a few "last" summer picnics on our favorite meadow, lots of "last" ice cream.

Nature breathes out

And yet I cannot deny that autumn also has its beauty. The black elderberry is ripe, the blackberries almost too ripe. A combine harvester is bringing in the harvest. We'll eat plums later, maybe I'll bake a cake. The low position of the sun and the blue sky cast a magical light on everything, and you can feel the life in the beauty of nature. It does its best to woo us with its magnificent colors and the calm that comes after a busy spring and summer of new beginnings and maturity in the animal and plant kingdoms when winter preparations begin.

Nature rebuilds itself year after year, day after day. For younger children in particular, the seasons are valuable points of reference for the year, and the division of the seasons is difficult to grasp without an understanding of numbers. Autumn shows impressively that it is now getting darker and colder, and it rewards us with colorful leaves that seem to fall endlessly from the trees, which you want to sweep up with your foot and throw into the air. We take the prettiest ones and press them between the pages of thick books. We don't find some of them again until much later, but we use most of them for crafts. In return, we also get chestnuts, acorns, beechnuts - all the fruit that the trees have been working so hard on since spring is now in full bloom. The pumpkins are ripe and with them the desire for soup.

Dark, rainy and cozy

You have to think about lights on your bike and weatherproof clothing again. The ones from last year are of course now too small. It gets dark so early outside. It's a shame in some ways, and it's nice in some ways. Now "night hikes" at 6 p.m. are possible again, the children love to wander through the forest with flashlights and feel like it's late at night. A positive side effect of the early dusk is that you can get the children to bed sooner because the saying "It's already dark!" can be put to good use again

Not every day in autumn is golden, and storms are now increasingly moving across the country. It doesn't matter, we can make ourselves so comfortable inside. We want to read, paint a picture together and play lots of board games  play. The family sits together at a table, the dice clatter and everyone is excited to see what it will show. We munch on pumpkin slices with oil and salt from the oven. As delicious as chips! Grandma knits warm socks for the children so that their feet can survive the winter and tells how as children they collected sacks of chestnuts for the pigs of a farmer who gave them a little money for it.

The children are looking forward to the autumn holidays. Relaxing after all the new challenges. Playing with Lego for a long time or taking the Schleich elf toy out into the garden again. Listening to an audio play. Baking. Crafting and painting . Just not having to do anything. Maybe a little trip is possible, but you can also enjoy it at home and prepare for winter following nature's example. Decorate a bit and get out the warm blankets for the sofa.

We have a large window in the dining room. Last spring we decorated it with all sorts of crafts to welcome summer - another ritual for us. The sprouting leaves on the branches and the budding flowers have to give way. Red and yellow and brown move in! The birds no longer court high in the trees, they now look for food on the ground or head south. If I were a little bird. We decorate the windowsill with chestnuts, leaves and other autumnal finds. Clouds are now clinging to the sky by the window, the wind is blowing the leaves up. Squirrels are jumping around.

Busy foraging everywhere

We explain to the little ones the difference between hibernation and winter dormancy. The children look to see if there are any squirrels outside in the garden, stocking up for their winter hibernation. It is getting dark. Walnuts are being cracked. Suddenly there is a cry, muffled but excited: “A hedgehog!” All that is left on the table are the remains of the craft. Everyone is sitting around the hedgehog, he is still small. His long, shiny snout is sniffing the grass. What is he looking for? The children's hands linger over the spines. They want to stroke him so much, but where?

Start to eat your fill, kids. The hedgehog has a lot to do! He also gathers food for the winter, but since he hibernates, he collects the food directly in his stomach to get a nice thick layer of fat that will nourish him well while he sleeps.

Another reason to look forward to autumn: festivals

There are a few lovely customs in the autumn. The harvest festival still plays a role, especially in the villages. The cattle are driven from the meadows to the stables using traditional rituals. We are also happy about the harvest in our garden. The zucchini and onions we grow ourselves taste incredibly good, much more intense than those from the supermarket. For the children, Halloween is the best thing, when they go haunting the area and collecting sweets. It's as if a sugar-obsessed hedgehog soul is slumbering inside them. For me as a child, the Räbeliechtli festival was great, and today as a mother I still think it's wonderful when we all light up the darkness with lanterns and sing in choir.

There is something so solemn about autumn, the way it hovers over us, dark and puffing, and prepares us for winter, warning and comforting at the same time. Hello autumn! I admit: we are really looking forward to you now.

Now you!

What do you like most about autumn? Do you have a special autumn anecdote from your family life? Do you have a great recipe that you would like to share with us? Have you made something great? I am interested in everything that makes autumn even more beautiful and can hardly wait for your contribution.

All love,

Your Bylle from kidz.ch