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AUTUMN  2021
NEWS FROM THE NICHOLS' NEST

AUTUMN COLORS IN THE TEXAS HILL COUNTRY

 

I'm so pleased to tell you I have a new book THE CHRISTMAS PORTRAIT SURPRISE, releasing on Tuesday, November 2. You can read about it below and see the cover. But first . . . let's think about autumn.

Have you ever wondered if there is a change of seasons in heaven?  I ponder those things sometimes. Maybe you would want it to be springtime forever – azaleas, dogwoods, daffodils, rosebuds, spring showers, and gentle warm breezes. Through the years I’ve spent a good bit of time in Guatemala, the Land of Eternal Spring and year-round growing seasons, and those who live there have no idea what they’ve missed. As beautiful as springtime is, I’m one of those hoping against hope that heaven will be eternal autumn.

I’m talking about a November afternoon when the sunrays come slanting through my windows at just the right angle, the temperature is a crisp sixty-five degrees, and the aroma of warm cinnamon and pumpkin spice hover over me like a cozy fog.

Now I do love gardening and flowers, but I have a penchant for autumn leaves. Albert Camus, the famous French philosopher and Nobel prize winner says, “Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” Did you know that there are fall colors in every spring leaf? Ten-year old Julia Russell in my book Silent Days, Holy Night is a bit precocious and is full of information about chromatography. She is excited to tell her grandmother Grancie what she knows. Maybe she just might teach you something
.
         “Hi, sweetie. Hope you had a good day. Did you teach those teachers of yours something today?”
         “Yes, ma’am. I showed them my experiment. We’ve been studying fossils, but now, since it’s autumn, we’re studying about why leaves change color. They really liked my project.”
          Grancie giggled and drove toward her house. “Tell me, did you blow anything up?”
          “Not this time. I just showed them how there’s red and yellow in a leaf even in the springtime when the leaf is green.”
           “Sounds impressive. Are you telling me there’s red and yellow in a green sycamore leaf in June?”
            “It’s true, Grancie. You just need a bottle of rubbing alcohol, some hot water, and a coffee filter to prove it. Oh, and you must have leaves. I put a few chopped-up green sycamore leaves in a jar and covered them with alcohol. Then I covered the jar with aluminum foil and put it in a pan of very hot water. I kept changing out the water to keep it hot. That’s important. After about thirty minutes, I took off the foil and put one end of a strip of coffee filter down in the alcohol, sort of like a wick in an oil lamp.

          “Then after about an hour and a half, as the alcohol evaporates, it brings the bands of color up the paper—red, orange, and yellow. See, it’s all about the chlorophyll. That’s what makes the leaves so green, and it hides the other colors until autumn. But the chlorophyll starts breaking down in the fall because the weather is cooler and there’s less sunlight. And when the chlorophyll breaks down, the leaves turn different colors. I just separated the colors using heat and alcohol. That’s basically the process of chromatography.”
            By that time we were in the driveway. “I can tell you lots more about chromatography. Would you like to know more about that?”

            Grancie got out of the car and headed toward the back porch. “You know, child, I do hope I’m still around when you’re grown up. I have a feeling you’re going to turn the world upside down, and I’d certainly like to see it. What do you say we go inside? I have some tasty butternut cookies for your snack.”
 
Now you know the science and how God made leaves to change colors. Truly, could there be anything more beautiful than autumn light stretching its fingers through a hillside forest of maple trees on a late afternoon? Or those idyllic scenes of bales of hay dotting the mown fields? Or that at-peace feeling when the harvest has been gathered and the world seems at rest? That time when the work is over and we can look forward to the coming holiday celebrations with family and friends. Could it be that is what heaven is like? 

Speaking of changing seasons . . . I’m excited to tell you about the release of my new book The Christmas Portrait Surprise, Tuesday, November 2, just in time to get you in the spirit of Christmas.

You’re the first to know. Seems I have a thing about writing stories told by precocious young girls. This is the third book in “The Family Portrait Series” and continues Katherine Joy Harding’s story. Talk about a change of seasons?

Young Kate’s life has been a series of painful adjustments following the heartbreaking death of her mother. Her memories of Christmastime and its traditions brought comfort, but all that changed when Kate’s father married Evie, who came with her own ideas about celebrating Christmas. Granny Grace has always been there to help carry on the sacred family traditions, but she decided to leave this Christmas.

Grappling with her anger and disappointment, Kate has no idea the surprises this Christmas would bring. The unexpected visit from the mysterious and elusive Mr. Josh. The redbird’s appearance just when Kate needed her. The search for a lost boy during a snowstorm. The startling discovery in Granny’s barn, a discovery that would change their lives. Unexplained footprints in the snow. But the biggest surprise would come on Christmas Day with the unexpected images in the family Christmas portrait.

This is a story about preserving family traditions while balancing life’s changing seasons and the introduction of new traditions. Kate tells the story in her adolescent voice, and Granny Grace, the family matriarch who has been the glue holding the family together for the last few years of grief and change, adds her own voice to the story. The raw emotion is gripping as Kate and Granny, though two generations apart, discover that sadness and joy can reside in the same heart. This book will wrap you up in a warm blanket of Christmas spirit with some unexpected surprises.

Take a look at the book cover below. My sweet and talented artist husband painted this for me after I finished the book. You will see Kate in the foreground. Look for the footprints in the snow, the redbird, and the rustic barn – all elements in the story.

Now back to where I started with what seasons are like in heaven . . . In The Christmas Portrait, book one in this series, Kate is asking the question of what Christmas is like in heaven. She wonders if they celebrate Jesus’s birth or if they give and receive gifts—questions a thoughtful girl missing her mama at Christmas would ask. And in Silent Days, Holy Night, Julia’s father is continually answering her non-stop questions. I suppose that Kate and Julia could have gotten just a wee bit of their curiosity about the world and heaven from me.

I hope you still have the wide-eyed wonder about things and that you make time to take that second look and ponder the simple things that aren’t so simple after all.
Autumn Blessings,
Phyllis
 
“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”    -- George Eliot
 

 

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Phyllis Clark Nichols · 14546 Brook Hollow Blvd #231 · San Antonio, TX 78232 · USA

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