OT - Michigan Fall Traditions Besides Football

I used to do more golfing in the month of October than any other month combined. Every Saturday before the Michigan game we would hit 18 holes grab some lunch on the way home and get ready for the game. My family also makes 30-40 apple pies one saturday in October and we put them in the freezer. They will last us until the following October. Best idea ever. Got an apple pie craving? Take it out of the freezer and pop it in the oven. 2 hours later you're eating apple pie! 

Honeycrisp apples. Man, the apples (and the cider) just suck on the East Coast. Growing up in the midwest, I remember getting so excited when fall came and my dad would start bringing back apple cider from the farmers market every weekend. People here don't understand something like warm apple cider and a fresh doughnut in the fall. It starts dipping below 60 in November and people just complain that its so cold.    

Fall is the best time of the year.  We head northbound I-75 on the first away weekend, this Saturday will be no exception.  We will head to the cabin located in Glennie, Michigan.  

I will get up before dawn to hunt either Deer, Ducks or Turkeys.  At about 9 or 10, the kids would be stirring.  We would grab a full thermos of coffee and head out to the Huron Nation Forest.

There are many hiking trails for every season.  When the kids were young, we would have them identify 10 different species of trees from the leaves.  We would then head to the Cider Mill for donuts, then off to the bar to watch the game.  

If it is a bye week we stay in the woods, cleaning out my hunting blind, looking for deer etc, until the 3:30 slate of games.  I made a large, thick crust pizza (from scratch) with 3 meat, 3 cheese.  We would then watch football the rest of the day with the family.

On Sunday, we would head out to a different trail.  We would be back at the cabin by 1pm.  I remember once my daughter asking why Saturday football is so much better than Sunday football.  Wifey put on a pot of the Best Chili on the Planet.  

We would hang out at the cabin for the next few hours before packing up for the dreaded trip home.

One question for everyone:  Why does the trip up north SEEM to be only a few minutes while the trip home takes days?

We started a tradition years ago, the kids would ask the quesiton.  "Daddy, why are we going home?" My answer, "So we can go home and hurry up to come back up north."  The kids loved this exchange.  

We carried this tradition forward every year.  This past year it was just my buddy and me, and he said the same thing.  It was sad when he died a few months later.

 

 

I really want some bloody pumpkin ale.

Its in season, delete this bullroar nonsense! Where are our standards? Oh the humanity!

Seriously though, what is so hard about NOT POSTING OT SHIT IN SEASON?!?!?!?!?! Clogging up the boards, go to Mlive's tavel/hobby board or something!

I love Michigan in the Fall. Starting back in the 80's a bunch of us who were recent grads would spend a weekend together in a hunter's house near Handy Creek and 131. A fairly nondescript area, but still beautiful, like much of Michigan. There was a glassed in cupola on top of the barn. It was a perfect place to play euchre or hearts, to have a beer, to see the yellows and reds and golds of all the trees around us waving in the breeze. As we've gotten older, we don't stay there as often . . . only having a pot bellied stove and no beds and seeing mouse turds everywhere isn't quite as appealing.

I love getting to Lake Michigan, especially on one of those Fall warm days, temps in the mid-70's. If you're lucky and half crazy and the water is right, you can go for a swim. I have a friend who runs more than 500 acres of orchards near Fennville. The last 10 years, I've picked maybe a half dozen or more bushels of apples, and several crates of concord grapes, making gallons of my own fresh grape juice. Nothing like cake donuts and crisp apples and washing it down with a sip of beer. Also smoked salmon and cheese and a good local wine.

When the days were nice, some of us would shoot skeet, or hunt for grouse and pheasant. It is hard to believe, but I've got a lot of fond memories of getting together with these guys for more than 25 years now. Nine of us were students at Michigan together, and a couple other guys have occasionally joined us. Early on, we would catch the afternoon game on WJR, but now, they are almost always on TV, if we've got cable or a signal.

EDIT:  I remember being able to buy a quart jug of freshly squeezed cider on game days walking to the stadium. I haven't seen that for years, but that was better than anything, and part of a glorious day.

I love waking up early on a Saturday and sitting up in the tree for a few hours before the games start. Also, sometimes immediately after a Michigan noon game I'll go out in the woods.

Raking them now, not so much, but it brings back memories.

Detroit Tigers being in a pennant race....oh wait.

 

Beer?

Lions sucking

Bring on the pumpkin spice flu shots.

 

OH and DECORATIVE GOURDS.

Cider and donuts

Fall, without doubt, is my favorite season.   Reading everyone's comments above confirm the best aspects of fall.   There's just something that stirs my soul on a crisp fall morning or evening when the forest is ablaze.

My favorite fall tradition as a child was raking immense piles of leaves, then trying to replicate Billy Sims' endzone dives over the pile.   For those Lions fans who are too young to remember Billy Sims, imagine gravity-defying leaps over heaping masses of lineman.   Only we did it into leaves.  Great memories. 

It's a great time to hit up all the wonderful casinos we have throughout the state of Michigan.

I use them to start all of my backyard fires this time of year, legality be damned.  

I would be making raspberry and strawberry jam if the kids hadn't eaten all of the fruit already.  I think I'm going to have to try some sort of electric fence or shock collar deterrent next year.

Most people do spring cleaning, but I like to do mine in the fall.  Once the outside work is done for the season, I go on a pinesol and bleach jihad inside the house.

Oh, and there's always a simmering pot of apples, oranges, cinnamon, and a little nutmeg on my stove.  Makes the whole house smell nice and helps with the dryness of the air.

Does anyone else recall when you could get fresh cider and donuts at The Big House in mid Sept-Oct?

As I recall they weren't official stadium vendors but community groups raising money. That would be the first stop my son and I made when we got inside.

Barn Dances. Current and former Michigan Greeks know what's up.

Yate's and Blake's cider mills. Some corny haunted houses. Beer! Oh, the lovely seasonal beers. Carving pumpkins. Putting up Halloween decorations. Halloween parties. The list goes on and on.

Now you all have me homesick.  Good luck this season OP.  I do miss the hunting.  I still hunt down here but the deer are not as big.  Do have a lot of hogs though.

My favorite non-football fall memory is trips to the Dexter Cider Mill for fresh apple donuts and cider.  You can't really get those style of donuts besides at mills; a couple years ago an awesome donut shop near me here in San Diego had apple donuts for one day randomly, it was like eating a little bit of home.  I hadn't realized how much i'd missed them til then, or anticipated how nostolgic it would make me.

My favorite non-football fall memory is trips to the Dexter Cider Mill for fresh apple donuts and cider.  You can't really get those style of donuts besides at mills; a couple years ago an awesome donut shop near me here in San Diego had apple donuts for one day randomly, it was like eating a little bit of home.  I hadn't realized how much i'd missed them til then, or anticipated how nostolgic it would make me.

Pretty much everything everyone else said.... Cider mills (although I don't like franklin. Too crowded and overpriced. Prefer Yates.) beer, fall food, leaves, etc

Something no one has mentioned though is ArtPrize, which is the largest public art competition in the world, featuring tons of art on public display (read: FREE) for three weeks in the fall in Grand Rapids.

I went for the first time with my wife while we were dating and we've gone every year since. It's a great time if you're into the arts!

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