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Summer is so overrated. All I heard the first week of September is "I can't believe summer is over" and "I miss summer already."
Phooey on all that thinking. Fall is the most glorious time of the year.
My daughter, who happens to have the middle name of Autumn, recently went on one of those happy teenage outpouring of her thoughts: "I love autumn. I love Halloween. I love colored leaves. I love decorating for Halloween. I love not being so stinking hot. I love autumn weather. It's the best. I can't wait until Halloween. I wish we had autumn weather all the time. I like wearing sweaters. I like wearing sweatshirts. I can't wait until we can carve pumpkins. Did I mention I like everything about autumn?"
As a parent, I realized I have passed on many good and bad things to my children. I consider this passion for autumn one of the good things I have accomplished, right up there with my children being awesome readers and knowing how to swim.
This summer has flown by in many ways, but I am so very sick of the sticky heat and the ever-hanging cloud of gravel dust.
I have become rather fed up with eating grilled food and cold sandwiches because I don't want to turn on the stove or oven in my sauna of a house. I am ready for those awesome cold weather foods like lamb stew and tator tot casserole. My soul is longing for some awesome thick chili and home baked bread!
I really don't handle heat as well as I used to, but one phone call to a plumbing and heating contractor to get a bid on central air sent that dream crashing down. Even if I didn't love all the other awesome things about fall, looking forward to it to be cooler would be enough.
I love the cool evenings, the frosty nights and those invigorating mornings that make you move a little quicker. May the sharp tang of the frost assault me when I go out the front door first thing in the morning. And that glorious first frost that means there will be less of the eternal string of different insects making their way into my home (well except for those #%^*# Asian Lady Beetles that show up the very day the first of the nearby soybeans are harvested, but I am trying to write a happy column here).
And the Harvest Moon. Watching the golden moon rise over quieted corn stalks that spent their day rattling in the gentle breeze is a highlight of my year. Last year I drove up to the ridge and watched the moon rise, and then came back down to our valley and watched it rise again over the ridge the surrounds our home.
In the days after the full moon I like a morning drive to the west, watching that same expectant moon hang in the morning sky over the round bales of corn stalks.  
I hope to make apple cider again this year, and make apple butter to share with friends. I'll make Salsa Verde with the last of the green tomatoes and stop feeling guilty for not taking care of my garden (it flooded badly in June and I lost much of my enthusiasm for it).
As far as this whole mentality of not liking fall because of the winter that follows... these folks need to work a bit at living in the moment. On days that I am really tired and I revel for a moment on how wonderful it feels to lie down in my bed with my dreamy soft pillow, I don't ruin it by thinking about getting up in the morning. When I sit down to Thanksgiving dinner I am not thinking about doing the dishes. When I start a new book I don't think about how I am going to miss the characters at the end. Carpe Diem.
Enjoy each beautiful autumn day, from the smell of the leaves to the stream of gold coming out of your combine. Celebrate the end of summer with Mother Nature at her best. Happy fall y'all.[[In-content Ad]]

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