and now the days have passed, I'm in the autumn of my years

I love fall

     I just enjoy fall more than any other season.
     Maybe it's the bite that comes in the air, sometimes unexpectedly.  There is a crispness to the air that you don't get in summer or spring.   The air seem fresher, cleaner, better for you.
     I like that first heavy frost, the one that kills mosquitoes and flies....or at least slows them down so you can swat them.
     I love campfires on chilly nights, when you turn away from the fire and let your eyes get accustomed to the dark, and you look in the sky and see the stars and try to imagine the constellations like Cassiopeia and Orion but you can never really find them because there are so many stars, and planes, and satellites zooming across the heavens and your attention gets drawn to them instead.
     I love walking through leaves, with the crunching noise they make under your feet.  No matter how hard you try to be quiet, the crushing leaves give you away.
     I love the colors.  The trees and bushes that go from green to red, yellow, brown, orange, purple.  I went for a walk in Skare Park today and was awed by the colors and the smells.  The pines along Fowler Road were so fragrant, it was like living in a potpourri bowl.  The yellow of the maples, the oranges and reds of the oaks, the purplish red of the sumac.
     I love the smell of burning leaves.  I know, people have asthma and allergies and all, but it is a good smell in small doses.
     Sometimes I can smell the fires people have in their houses.  The scent of applewood being burned hangs in the air and pleases my senses.
     I like putting on sweatshirts and sitting on the porch sipping a hot beverage.  Or a glass of wine.
     I love caramel apples and apple cinnamon doughnuts, fresh from the oven and still warm.
     I love the crispness of a fresh apple.  It has a different bite than one that has been stored in a warehouse for a few months.
     My lawn always looks best in the fall.  Weeds have died, the grass grows a little slower, and it just looks greener.
     There always seems to be a hint of urgency in the fall.  Outside projects need to be completed, crops harvested, Packer fans to tease, because we all know there is a time when none of that will be possible.
     I know fall is thought of as the end of a cycle.  The fall of life, the autumn of my years, the nearing of an end.
     But I still love it.  I don't think it is ever long enough, but I don't have control over that.
    All I know is I want to really get out and experience fall, before it is too late.