Across the fields, like old men, appear. . . .

So, Fall. This is my favorite time of year. I have always hated the heat of summer, and the muddy, crappy, messy life of spring is not exciting to me. It probably doesn't help that I have an enormous dog with enormous feet to deal with when my 9 acre yard is composed of 8 acres of mud and 1 acre of buildings. Winter is great but does mean I have to watch idiots drive SUV's into the ditch and then expect me to care as I drive by unconcerned in my 14 lb Dodge Neon.

So, Fall. The death of vegetation and the increasingly cold air make me feel alive. The cold I have always liked, partly as a gentle reference to the shattering cold of January, which always makes me feel like life is actually a struggle and there is a fight to be won, (against homicidal mother nature) instead of what our advanced society generally makes me feel. It makes me feel that any idiot, no matter how incapable of rational thought or common sense, can have anything they feel they deserve. Everyone gets a college degree, everyone can have a job in the financial sector and ANYONE can be president. But smallpox? Nobody gets THAT anymore.

So, Fall. There's a great song by Charlie Maguire called "Fall is Here." It's a little a capella folk song about the signs of fall that make me think of the things I love in the world. Children, hunting, seeing the farmers in the field, and even the occasional cow. There's nothing about going up north to see the leaves change or Christmas shopping. Just the simple life in the country and how fall changes things. The ebb and flow of time seems so much more apparent as the combines come out of the shed and the tall corn starts disappearing from the land around me.

So, Fall.