Autumn My Favorite Time of Year

Autumn, my favorite time of the year. My sister didn't like autumn she said everything is dying and the cold weather didn't suit her. Funny how two people can look at the same thing and see something different. I see autumn as shedding it's summer skin. Shrug off the old to sleep during winter and get rejuvenated for spring.


 I grew up in the north the kaleidoscope of colored leaves in the fall were breathtaking. Even as a small child I appreciated the beauty of nature and my surroundings.

 The neighborhood I lived in had a leaf service that would come around and suck up all the leaves. All you had to do was rake them into the curb in a pile and the big machine would suck them up. My friends and I would walk to school and jump and play in each pile leaving behind destruction. I'm sure the leaf guy hated us since we made his job harder. I would come home with holes in my stockings and leaves in my pockets and shoes.

 My girlfriends  would rake the leaves of her grandmothers yard and she would take us out to Friendly's for ice cream another yearly event I looked forward to. Now the thought of raking leaves makes me cringe, I'm good at making excuses now but since I'm single if I don't do it. It doesn't get done.

I've always loved Autumn, my birthday is in autumn. I love Halloween, fall colors and pumpkins that time of year for bonfires and marshmallow's, ghost stories and cold nights.

 Every year my family would drive up to Pound Ridge New York and make the 2 mile hike to the fire tower where we could look out at all the colorful leaves. We would have a family picnic with cousins, aunts and uncles and then start the journey to the tower.


 It's been decades since I went on that hike but have never forgotten such a great memory. I was curious one day and googled the park and the fire tower and sadly came up with nothing. I even went so far as to call the Pound Ridge Chamber of Commerce. The nice lady said they didn't have a fire tower. I was shocked surly this wasn't some childhood fantasy. I started digging through my photos and found some of the tower and sent them to her. She went so far as to call me back after she did some research and said the tower did exist and was torn down in the late 70's. A year or so after my family moved to Tennessee. I'm sure they took it down as a liability issue. I will have to dig out the photos and update this post when I find them.


 She asked if I could send her some photos for their museum. Ah I need to get on that task. As autumn would have it everything must come to an end at least I had the memory to carry with me all these years.
 Tennessee fall season isn't as lovely as the north. We have one or two good weeks of beauty and then once it rains its all gone. I spent two days outside driving around looking at the changing leaves because I knew time would run out and it did. Now I have to get back outside and rake up all the leaves. I usually blow them into my neighbors yard and they blow them back into mine. A volleyball game with leaves until they blow away. I thought I would do the adult thing this year and rake them up. I did save a bunch for my compost.
As long as you keep turning them so they don't get moldy by spring I will have lovely dark compost.

Update: I found this post I started and didn't finish it so here I am as usual procrastinating. Last fall I was mowing up the yard and some leaves got under neath the mower and caught it on fire. Had to call the fire dept. I figured  when the seat started melting it was time to call. I can look back and almost laugh it up as a life experience although my lawn mower would beg to differ. At least I have a spare mower. On the bright side we wanted to clean up the leaves off the driveway anyway.

and so it goes. Its now February the grass will start growing the cycle will follow and I'll be raking leaves again soon..Till then..