Festival of Fall

I hate winter, there can be no doubt of that. However, I do love the highway that brings us there often referred to as fall. Fall is that magical place where you can walk around during the day without a coat, taking in the bright, warm sun and blue skies, but at night you get to remember how wonderful it feels to climb between sheets that have been warmed by an electric blanket and pull them up tight around your chin as you snuggle in.

Everything in the fall smells of warm cinnamon and cloves and tastes of pumpkin and spice. There is pumpkin pie and pumpkin cookies. I was in Walmart and they even had pumpkin fritters. Yum!! I went to Ingram's to have something engraved and there across the street was that little piece of Heaven on earth called the Great Harvest Bread Company. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that there would be endless pumpkin delights waiting there for me. Sure enough, I found a cream cheese filled pumpkin roll and a loaf of pumpkin chocolate chip bread and I hastily shelled out $17.00 in cash just so I could take them home with me. I have no idea who I think is going to eat them, but I was on a pumpkin roll (pun intended) and there was no stopping me.

On the drive home I was overwhelmed by the beautiful array of trees and bushes showing off their brilliant attire. From the fiery red burning bush to the liquid gold Quaken Asp, color was everywhere. There was even a huge maple tree that sported the brilliant gold at the top, with a burning bronze in the center and the die hard green leaves at the bottom. It was like the life giving sap that ran through its veins had chilled and thickened and just couldn't manage to flow to the top any more and so slowly the life drained out of it from the top down.

It was amazing to see how everything that was alive and vibrant just a month ago was now drifting off into the slumber of winter in a bursting flash of rich colors. Soon these beautiful plants will disrobe and let their endless pallets of color drift to the ground where they will slowly decay beneath a frozen blanket of snow and once again I will forget the beautiful picture that is fall as it is chased over the horizon by the cold, gray of winter.

I wish I had the time to take my camera and just walk these streets and collect photographic evidence of this miraculous event. But alas, I will simply grab a glimpse as I hurry about doing the mundane errands of the day and I will have to wait until life bursts alive again in the spring to appreciate one of God's beautiful gifts of nature.