When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock…James Whitcomb Riley

It’s only when we’ve tasted all of summer’s delights that we can truly begin to savor them in the autumn glow.

Welcome to Leah’s Front Porch: Fall Edition

Up here in the mountains we measure time not by appointments or meeting schedules, workdays or weekends, deadlines and casual Fridays…we measure time by season.  Autumn is my favorite.

There are rituals…

Splitting and stacking cords of wood for winter warmth.

Bringing in bales of hay and stacking them in the barn to feed the horses for at least six months when there’s no grazing.

Hunting.

Then there’s…

Storing the kayaks, badminton sets, golf clubs, fishing poles, summer clothes.

Unboxing winter boots, warm jackets, scarves, hats, wool socks…

All of this might sound like a lot of work, which it is, but it’s the kind of purposeful, meaningful work

that, at the end of the day, makes us feel “pleasantly tired”.  This kind of work is one of the main reasons why mountain people tend to live longer, healthier lives.

And then there’s the savoring…

It occurs to me that Fall is the only season that bears no expectations, it is what it is, and we’re grateful for that.  None of the grumbling that a late frost brings in the Spring.  No anxious predictions of what the drought conditions will mean in the Summer fire season.  No demands for snow to produce a traditional Winter “White Christmas”.

As a matter of fact, of all the times of the year, Fall seems to imbue a notion of Gratitude. Maybe that’s why Thanksgiving is in the Fall.  Thanksgiving is probably my all time favorite holiday. Even Thanksgiving takes on that “whatever it brings” quality by not being assigned a specific date.  Thursday, out of all the days of the week, Thursday?  That’s what I mean about Fall. It doesn’t care what people think, and people like that.

I’m at the beginning of what some people refer to as “the Autumn of my years“.  I’ll be 59 years old soon, 59 seasons as they say, and it’s only now that I can truly appreciate what all the hard work has been about.  My children are grown and thriving. My home is just the way I want it (although a little furniture re-arranging now and then never hurts).  My business is fully integrated into my life so that I never really distinguish where work begins and play ends, it’s all one pretty blissful day in the life.

I’m grateful for all of this.  When I sit in front of the fire on a brisk Autumn evening, with family nearby, dogs at my feet, a glass half full of good wine and a brilliant Harvest Moon on the horizon…

what is there for me to do but give thanks?