10.26.2019

Five Things I Love About Fall


It’s Fall ya’ll, or at least, our version of it. Here in north Louisiana we have four seasons: pre-summer, summer, deep summer, and summer-isn’t-over-yet summer. Winter? What’s that? There have been times when we wore short sleeves on Christmas Day. Sure, from January through March the temperature gets a little cooler, but I can only remember once when the temperature dropped to single digits during the day. It takes very special conditions to freeze the Red River, like during the Great Freeze of December 1983.

Maybe I exaggerate (But not about the Great Freeze. We still talk about that event down here). No, I’m not exaggerating. Not at all. Sure, I’ve seen snow in June...in Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. It snowed on my birthday one year. I can’t remember which year.

Fall is when the high drops from 100 degrees to 75 degrees in one day and the cooler temperature struggles to return the next day but just can’t quite beat the heat. We love this time of year because it comes as a great relief from the burning hell of summer. So Fall is here in North Louisiana. I always look forward to this day for months...and months...and months.

So in homage to Fall, here are a few things that make Fall special for me:
1.    The smell of firewood burning. We don’t really need the heat from the fireplace. It’s for ambiance. If we get chilled, we throw on another layer of clothing. That’s all we really need.
2.   The crispness of the air in the morning. As I said before, the cooler weather is a relief from the burning fire of he... I mean summer. I love to breathe in the bright, crisp air on a fall morning. I luxuriate in the smell of leaves on the ground instead of mowed grass. I’m allergic to grass clippings.
3.   Cool-weather comfort foods. It seems odd to eat chili and drink hot cocoa when the temperature is over 80 degrees. So we wait and wait until the thermometer drops to 79 or below. Then we indulge. I know it’s truly Fall when I pull out my Daddy’s chili recipe.
4.   Wearing jackets and boots. I admit it: I collect jackets. It’s an obsession. I love outerwear. I’d wear a jacket, a blazer, a cardigan, a shawl, etc., every day, all year if I could. And boots? I love pulling my booties out of the deep, dark hole where they’ve been hiding for months. I can’t wear them in the summers (yes, plural). I inherited hot feet from my Daddy.
5.   Decorating the house for Fall. This is my absolute favorite thing about Fall. My daughter comes over and helps me pull the decorations out of the still-hot attic. It gives me the feeling that Fall has arrived even if it hasn’t.
I love this time of year. I think I’ll go make myself a cup of hot apple cider.

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