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Indiana Autumn

© Annie Johnson

Suite 101.com's Hoosier Hannah waxes lyrical about Fall in her native Indiana as the Sandhill cranes and Whooping cranes fly south to Florida and the Canadian Geese clean the soy bean and corn fields after harvest. She takes us to the annual Fall Festivals at Billy Creek Village and Nashville to sample Apple butter, honey and sorghum.

Hello, fellow travelers! Hannah is taking you to her favorite Indiana places at autumntide; the many Fall Foliage Festivals and The Covered Bridge Festivals that abound here. Indiana is beautiful throughout the year, but it is perhaps at its most scenic when Fall tree color changes make it a living still life of great beauty.

Along the highways, sumac is a blaze of brilliant magenta red. Maple trees glow in colors that range from gold to orange and peach to crimson, and gingko trees are bright sunny gold. The sweet gum tree, clothed in leaves of deep bronzy maroon, is surely one of the most beautiful sights.

Now we venture out to gather Black Walnuts, Filberts, Hickory and Beech Nuts to hull and dry to use in our winter cake and fudge recipes. At home in our kitchens we are making Apple Butter and cooking down pumpkin to freeze for pies.

Out in the fields Indian Corn hangs its head to dry on the stalk, soy beans are being harvested and the Canadian Geese land by the thousands to glean what the harvesters have left on the ground.

Our skies are filled with Sandhill Cranes, and Whooping Cranes. They are flying south from their summer habitat in Michigan and northern Indiana, to winter in Florida's marshlands. What a magnificent sight they present as thousands of these big white birds fly high overhead looking like schools of celestial fish as they wheel and glide with the sun glinting off their huge wings.

Let me take you to Billy Creek Village in Parke County Indiana, the county known as the Covered Bridge Capitol of the United States. Billie Creek is a living museum, covering 75 acres, with a farmstead, and a 30 room modern Inn.

Here you can wade the creek, you can feed the farm animals, view all three covered bridges and take part in special week-end activities that are planned all year round. Here is where my old art teacher, Joe Trover, the master of the palette knife oil painting technique, had his studio for years. He painted on old buzz saw blades from saw mills, and also on the long blades of old cross cut saws, as well as on canvas. Visit the fascinating General Store here. Browse and buy hand made brooms along with all those rural items that are Indiana Fall specialties; home made apple butter, pumpkins, new honey, sorghum, a myriad of jams and jellies. Buy also Indian corn, those colorful ears of corn in shades of red that are used by we Hoosiers in our autumn bouquets and table arrangements, along with decorative gourds, and dried bittersweet.

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