Indian Ladder Farms' late fall bounty

I'm looking for a word.

It isn't quite sad, although if you pin me down, I suppose it could be. Melancholy has too many syllables and, anyway, the dictionary links it to depression. And the word I'm looking for doesn't go down that road.

The blues won't do either. The blues come from your heart, or maybe it's your bones, some dark place deep inside. I like the way ennui sounds, but unfortunately it means bored, which is too empty for what I want to say.

So I guess, for the moment, I am stuck with good old, little one-syllable sad.

I was feeling sad this morning. Not the tear-out-your-hair-and-weep-like-a-mad-woman sad, just a touch of the rainy-morning kind, like it is gray, and the cold is setting in and it seems like a little sorrow is called for, or something like that.

Maybe I just wanted an excuse to play hooky from my writing deadlines. (Editors, if you are out there, don't worry. I am getting there.)

Somehow I found myself grabbing my camera and heading out of town. The soft-rock station was playing the kind of tunes you listen to in private, the 2 a.m. bonbons of music. Soon I was pulling in to the parking lot at Indian Ladder Farms.

Pictures. I wanted pictures. Did they even stalk the produce store this time of year? How many pictures of apples can a person take?

I headed in.

Much to my surprise, the store held a late fall bounty.

Fried green tomatoes anyone?

These local potatoes are some of the best I've tasted. And they are 50 cents a pound.

The colors jumped out at me. Reds, greens, browns. And all the circles. Like the only things that can survive at this time of year are those that learn to curl up in a ball. Is there such a thing as vegetable-stand therapy. No? Well there should be.

How can you be sad looking at cranberries? Impossible. Maybe that's why they are a holiday food.