Connecticut 191

Traveling south into Connecticut, I enjoy a back road route through the old villages of Hazardville, Scitico, Melrose, and Broad Brook-- hamlets  that were long ago swallowed up into the towns of Enfield and East Windsor. 

Below Route 190, it's mostly farmland--tobacco, corn, apples, squash, blueberries, and tree farms. I enjoy watching the seasons change--the rough furrows of soil being made ready for planting in the spring, and a little later acres of rhododendrons and azaleas flashing bright pink. This time of year the orchards are loaded with apples.

This week in between fields cut back ready for a winter's rest, there was a whole field of sunflowers still standing and staring at their namesake, and a field of perfectly ripe pumpkins I hadn't noticed last week.  Between last week and this, the pumpkins' leaves had dried and withered, exposing this array of round orange fruit. I did not see any farm stand nearby selling pumpkins, so I suspect there are no future jack o' lanterns here. These are the leftovers, left to be eaten by the wildlife.

A little beyond the field of pumpkins is an old tobacco barn that has fallen. I remember its slow leaning, leaning, finally succumbing to gravity with the help of a hurricane.  The old barn, the old villages have past, but today the pumpkins are ripe and ready.