While anytime is a great time to take pictures, to get the best shots in autumn, you should strive to get portraits of your family during the “magic hour”. This refers to the hour after sunrise and/or the hour just before sunset. Surely there will be great opportunities, throughout the day, for good lighting, but shooting at these times can almost guarantee some of the best natural lighting for your subjects.

Outside photography in autumn isn’t the only option.

Don’t forget there are costumes and fun-times to capture at Halloween. Before the make-up wears off or the costume get accidentally ripped, try getting some candid shots of your kids before they leave to go Trick-or-Treating.

There will also be chances for some great captures, with relationships and memories made, at your family’s Thanksgiving gathering. These are wonderful times to capture through photography for posterity’s sake.

Some Tips for Stunning Fall Time Fun Photos:

• Pay attention to the time of day, to achieve the best lighting. Remember that there is something photographers like to call the “magic hour” which is the hour after sunrise and the hour right before sunset. Shooting outside during these times will produce a wonderful natural lighting for your subject.

• A wide angle shot, including the changing leaves, would be wonderful, but remember to get in closer, too. After all, your baby or children are the main focus of your photography.

• Don’t just set up your children and snap; move around and capture a variety of angles (i.e. get down low, shoot down from up above)

• Take your time and shoot a lot. The perfect shot isn’t always achieved immediately. You should devote some time to getting the pictures you envision. And even if you don’t have a clear vision of what you want, getting out and simply photographing your subjects will yield something worthy. Sometimes a photographer’s favorite photo of his subject is something accidentally shot.

• If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.

• Be sure to share your timeless memories with the whole family. A precious photo book or photo cards are two great ideas that your loved ones will appreciate forever

Even if your children are not allergic to peanuts, you might want to consider switching to sunflower butter because it is healthier than peanut butter. We think it tastes better, too. Try making these sunshine wraps, and let your kids be the judge.

Ingredients for each wrap:
2 tablespoons sunflower butter
1 tablespoon apple, grated
1 tablespoon carrots, grated
1 tablespoon raisins
1 whole wheat tortilla

Directions:
Spread sunflower butter on the tortilla, Sprinkle the top with apples, carrots and raisins. Roll up and serve.

Variations and optional additions: shredded coconut, chopped dates, banana rounds, drizzle of honey, sliced turkey, chopped celery, chopped onion, mini marshmallows, bacon crumbles, or anything else that sounds good!

Produce Corner: Sunflower Seeds
Sunflowers are one of Mother Nature’s wonderful gifts. This brilliant yellow flower that towers high above other plants in the garden bares seeds that are delicious and nutritious. The sunflower is native to North America. In fact, Native Americans considered sunflower seeds an important, high-energy food source. They introduced them to the Spanish explorers who brought them back Europe where they also became very popular.

Sunflower seeds are called a “nutrient-rich” food, this means that they provide substantial amounts of vitamins and minerals for relatively few calories. With the new 2005 U.S. Dietary Guidelines recommending Americans eat fewer calories, these types of foods are quite popular for the obvious reason – you get more of the good stuff with less of the heavy stuff.

Sunflower seeds are an excellent source of “good” fats, both mono and poly unsaturated. Most of the fat in your diet should come from these two types of fat (the most common sources are seeds, nuts, and fish). Sunflower seeds are the best whole food source of vitamin E, an important nutrient needed to prevent heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and dementia. They are also rich in fiber. Most Americans consume only half of the fiber they need each day. A fiber-rich diet will reduce risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Magnesium is another important nutrient that many Americans lack, but is also found in Sunflower seeds. Some research shows that higher intakes of magnesium could reduce your risk of Type 2 Diabetes.

If you are looking for a simple, healthy snack, enjoy a handful of mild nutty tasting sunflower seeds. But don’t stop there, you can also get the healthy benefits of sunflower seeds in buttery smooth sunflower butter, and in sunflower oil.

Age to introduce: Around 2-3 years old. Both sunflower seeds and sunflower butter are a choking hazard for very little children.

Sunflower seeds for the family
At the market: Sunflower seeds are sold in the shell or shelled. Because they are high in fat, sunflower seeds are susceptible to becoming rancid; shop at a store where there is a rapid turnover in bulk products and check the expiration date on packaged items. Sunflower butter is sold in many natural products stores and is usually located where you will find peanut butter. Sunflower oil is available in most supermarkets and you’ll find it with other vegetable oils.

Storage: Sunflower seeds can spoil easily, because of their high fat content. They are best stored in a tightly closed container in the refrigerator or freezer. For storing sunflower butter and oil, follow the manufacturer directions on the package.

It’s easy to add sunflower seeds to your family’s meals:
Sprinkle them on yogurt, oatmeal, cold cereal, or ice cream
Top a salad or pita sandwich with them for lunch
Toss a handful of seeds in tuna or chicken salad
Add ½ cup of seeds to muffin, pancake, or cookie batters
Snack on trail mix made with sunflower seeds, granola, and dried blueberries

Thanksgiving Salad
This colorful salad is a perfect starter or compliment to your Thanksgiving dinner. It has everything you need – color, texture, and taste!

Dressing:
¼ cup balsamic vinegar
¾ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2 tablespoons cilantro, chopped
Salt and Pepper, to taste

Salad:
9-12 oz baby spinach, washed and dried
½ cup canned beets, drained, sliced or julienned
½ cup mandarin oranges, drained
¼ cup feta or blue cheese, crumbled
¼ cup sunflower seeds

Dressing: Combine all ingredients in an airtight container, cover and shake. Refrigerate until ready to use. (Dressing can be made a day ahead).

Just before serving, shake dressing and pour about ½ the dressing over the spinach. Toss gently until spinach is coated. Taste, and add additional dressing, if needed. Divide spinach onto 4-6 salad plates or spread spinach over a large serving platter for buffet or family-style dining. Arrange beets, oranges, cheese and sunflower seeds on the top of the spinach salad bed.

Sunflower Butter:
You can replace peanut butter with sunflower butter in all of your favorite recipes. However, when cooking with sunflower butter, reduce the amount baking powder or baking soda, or add a little lemon juice to the recipe. Otherwise, the sunflower butter will turn a green color.

Sunflower butter dipping sauce
This is a terrific Asian inspired dipping sauce that is perfect to serve with fresh or grilled veggies, grilled meats and tofu, or just toss a few tablespoons with cooked ramen noodles for a simple side dish.

Ingredients:
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon sesame oil
¼ cup minced onion
½ teaspoon fish sauce or soy sauce
¼ cup water
½ cup sunflower butter
½ cup coconut milk
¼ teaspoon salt
Dash of red pepper flakes

Directions:
Place ingredients in a bowl and blend together until smooth. Refrigerate. Sauce will thicken in the refrigerator. Serve cold or at room temperature.

About the Authors
Cheryl Tallman and Joan Ahlers are sisters, the mothers of five children, and founders of Fresh Baby. Raised by parents who love fresh foods and entertaining, their mom, a gourmet cook, ensured that they were well-equipped with extraordinary skills in the kitchen. Both with long track records of business success, they decided to combine their skills in the kitchen with their knowledge of healthy foods and children to create Fresh Baby. Cheryl and Joan put a modern twist on the conventional wisdom that when you make it yourself, you know it’s better. Their goal at Fresh Baby is to make the task of raising a healthy eater a little bit easier for all parents. Fresh Baby’s breastfeeding accessories and baby food making supplies provide parents with practical knowledge and innovative tools to support them in introducing their children to great tasting, all-natural foods – easily and conveniently. Visit them online at www.FreshBaby.com and subscribe to their Fresh Ideas newsletter to get monthly ideas, tips and activities for developing your family’s healthy eating habits!

“Wouldn’t you just know it,” muttered my husband, Randy.

We had already been driving for a couple of hours in a pickup truck that we had borrowed from a friend, and now it was completely dark.

“What’s wrong?” I asked sleepily. I had dozed off only a few minutes ago.

“It’s starting to rain,” Randy replied, as he reached over to turn on the windshield wipers.

Rain? In a few seconds, I came fully awake. If it was raining, that meant Mom and Dad’s furniture was getting wet.

So far, it had been my worst Thanksgiving ever. Dad had passed away a month ago. My mother had died seven years earlier. When I was a kid, we always celebrated Thanksgiving at home. All four of my grandparents had died before I was born, and to me, Thanksgiving meant celebrating the holiday with Mom and Dad. But now, for the very first time in my whole life, all thirty-four years of it, there had been no one to spend Thanksgiving with at my parents’ place.

Randy and I did, however, have plenty of work to do at Mom and Dad’s house. A family wanted to rent it, and we needed to have it cleaned out by Christmas. Randy and I had been married for a little less than six months, and this was hardly the way that I had wanted us to spend our first Thanksgiving as a married couple. And yet, I knew it was no use waiting. That if we waited it wouldn’t bring either of my parents back. But cleaning out the house seemed so final. The end of a lifetime. The end of two lifetimes. I simply wasn’t ready. Although, if I were going to be honest with myself, I knew I probably never would be “ready.”

We had decided to take some of Mom and Dad’s furniture home with us. My parents’ house was in west central Wisconsin, and my husband I lived two-hundred-and-fifty miles away in the southern part of the state.

After we had loaded the first piece of furniture into the pickup truck we had borrowed, Mom and Dad’s bedroom looked very empty without the dresser that they’d had for as long as I could remember. In the top dresser drawer, my mother had kept some of her keepsakes, including a strand of blond hair. When I was a kid and had gotten my hair cut short, Mom wanted to save some of it. Dad’s drawer held a few keepsakes too. His old pocket watch, for one thing. Dad always carried a pocket watch. He had been a farmer, and he said a wristwatch would never survive the hardships of farm work (dust and water, grease and oil).

In addition to the dresser, we had taken Mom’s cherry wood buffet. My mother had stored her tablecloths and what she referred to as her “good dishes” in the buffet. Randy and I were also bringing home the chest-of-drawers that I’d had since I was a little girl. Although the middle drawer looks like two separate drawers, it is actually one big drawer. When I was growing up, I had been fascinated by the design and had used the big drawer for storing my sweaters.

But now, after we had so carefully loaded the furniture and strapped it into the back of the truck, it was raining, which meant everything was all going to end up ruined.

No, wait a minute. The furniture was not going to get wet. We had put a tarp over the load.

“Well, at least we’ve got a tarp,” I said to my husband. By this time, it was raining so hard the windshield wipers couldn’t keep up, even on high.

Randy shook his head. “The tarp won’t help much unless we tie it down better.”

A few minutes later, my husband pulled off at a gas station.

“But what are we going to tie it down WITH?” I asked, as the truck swayed in a gust of wind that hit it broadside. We hadn’t counted on wind and rain or that we would need more rope.

Randy smiled. “These,” he said, bending down to pull the laces out of his work boots. “If I cut them into pieces, I should have enough to go around.”

It was still raining when we arrived home several hours later, so Randy put the truck in the garage. The next day I could hardly believe my eyes when we discovered that the furniture had suffered only a few wet spots here and there, but that nothing had gotten completely soaked.

“What would I do without you?” I said to my husband as I ran my hand over Mom and Dad’s dresser. “I never would have thought of shoelaces. Not in a million years.”

Randy shrugged. “I couldn’t let your mom and dad’s furniture get ruined, could I? What kind of a person would I be if I let that happen?”

And just then it dawned on me that even though it had seemed like my worst Thanksgiving ever, I actually had quite a few things to be thankful for. And my husband was right at the top of the list.

About The Author
LeAnn R. Ralph is the editor of the Wisconsin Regional Writer (the quarterly publication of the Wisconsin Regional Writers’ Assoc.) and is the author of the book: Christmas In Dairyland (True Stories From a Wisconsin Farm) (August 2003). Share the view from Rural Route 2 and celebrate Christmas during a simpler time. Click here to read sample chapters and other Rural Route 2 stories — ruralroute2.com. bigpines@ruralroute2.com