Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, October 8, 1995                   TAG: 9510090003
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: ELIZABETH OBENSHAIN
DATELINE: CHECK                                LENGTH: Medium

AUTUMN'S THE TIME TO HEAD FOR THE COOL COUNTRYSIDE

On a morning walk in Floyd County, climbing the hill past our neighbor's cattle pasture, I notice the first red leaves already staining the roadside.

In the woods, trillium and solomon's seal have given way to purple asters and goldenrod.

The raucous caw of the crows echoes above the now empty woods.

A peace has settled on the land.

After a summer of unrelenting heat and drought, we're weary of the once longed-for, bone-warming summer sun.

Everything about fall seems welcome - even Virginia Tech football, when we can pick up the game on the uncertain airwaves among Floyd's mountains. Yet such goings-on seem a world away on a quiet fall weekend in the country.

In the evening, when we stroll past the old apple trees dotting the yard, reminders of an earlier generation, we know to pause and look for the phantom shape of deer slipping away into the woods. The bounty of apples lures them closer and closer to the house this time of year. But they are gone with just the flash of tails and a loud snort at our indiscreet appearance.

This time of year, our New River landscape must be like the hillsides that inspired Robert Frost in New England. On our walks, the scenes summon his words: "The crows above the forest call/Tomorrow they may form and go./Oh, hushed October morning mild/Begin the hours of this day slow."

He understood weekends like ours, where the days are so perfect you want to stretch them out, savor them and freeze images of changing hillsides in your mind.

Even routine chores rise to the level of valued ritual on such weekends. Puttering around the house, we cherish time to straighten our lives, organize our laundry and clean out the catalogs.

Outdoors, it's time to tackle the fall garden - trimming and reorganizing the chaos left from the summer's riot of growth into a more well-ordered display we will hope to see next summer.

It's our last chance to harvest the yellow tomatoes and aging basil before the fall frost.

Balancing the chores with the more eternal satisfactions is the hard part. I remind myself to save moments, to pause and look up from labor to take in the expanse of fall woods, the still-green meadow stretching to creek, the last fall bounty of wildflowers.

We are blessed in this valley with land that fires the imagination and soothes the soul. We simply have to open our eyes to it.

Elizabeth Obenshain is The Roanoke Times' New River editor.