Fall in NE

A Season...My Season...Until winter that is...

It's finally arrived, my favorite season of the year. The bugs are slowly starting to disappear, as are the summer birds, but this morning there were seven wild turkeys in my neighbors yard. The air has a different texture now. If one could actually see air I think that in the fall it would look like a neatly folded piece of the whitest paper. One clean fold, four sharp edges.



Of coarse who can forget about the smell of the apple trees. The fragrance spreads all over the neighborhood as the wind blows wrestling the leaves that have already passed off of their limbs. The trees have started to turn and when I drive up a certain hill near my house, or down a street where the trees have been allowed to form a tunnel over it, they look as though they have burst into a fire! So many blindly bright colors and so many different hues, no one could ever name all the shades I see. In moments like this I think of my grandma who always describe colors like "orange..ish" or "red…ish" or "yellow…ish". My grandpa always used to say to her "Colors like that DON'T exist!" and I would smile because I knew better. He just had to take a closer look at the leaves.



When I get home from school I usually go and try to take a few moments for myself by just laying down in the thick bed of grass at the front of my house. I take shelter from the wind behind Bella my dog that lies down next to me. I close my eyes and take in all the other things fall has to offer to my senses. I feel a bug crawling over my hand and in the distance I hear the beating of hooves on the pavement and I know that it's my neighbors taking the opportunity to ride. Their horses yell a greeting to mine as they trot by and mine yell back. I know Rosie and Rocky would love to go…But I have so much homework to do and can't afford the couple of hours riding would take. "This weekend though." I promise them in my thoughts.



Fall is such a happy season. Children look forward to being something different for one night in exchange for a months worth of candies. Families start planning for thanksgiving. My mom starts canning peaches, even though we are not farmers like our great grandparents were she thinks it's good to keep the tradition alive. If the grocery stores ran out of food around winter or if just out of the blue we got ten feet of snow in one night…we'd be ready I just get that feeling when I walk down to the basement and see all the stored fruit and vegetables. Not only do we have canned peaches but also we have marinated beans and TONS of applesauce. But I hope ten feet of snow is impossible for now, because I have no idea what would happen with the horses.



Even though around me the trees are cutting their leaves off of their ration of food, and all the animals are disappearing into their burrows more and more I still am never depressed about this season. I think fall is one of the best times for reflection, a time to say goodbye to the old and get ready to cocoon into our warm houses for the winter to emerge new and better people in the spring.


Here's to fall…