Yesterday Autumn officially arrived, or “Fall” if you prefer to call it that, and I, for one, am delighted. I know many don’t agree with me on that as there are those who lament the end of summer, but I have never been one of them. I’m a “Fall Person” at the minimum and I would even say I’m a Fall and WINTER person. Granted, in Oregon our winters are typically not too severe and I don’t dislike the rain. What I dislike is heat so, yes, that does mean I’m not a fan of summer. Never have been. I like having 4 distinct seasons, even if our winters here are not that frigid. Winter here is cloudy, and wet and once in a while we’ll see ice and snow, but not too often. Despite that, it’s a definite weather change and I like that. Sure, it gets wet and soggy and having dogs, that means a lot of wet footprints in the house all winter and I typically am ready for that to end by spring and summer, but it doesn’t take too much of the hot weather for me to start longing for some cloudy weather and rain. That’s just how I roll. The rain doesn’t usually arrive until mid-October, so we get some great Fall days: Sunny, but not hot, with cool evenings and mornings, with all the beautiful leaves. All that being said, I LOVE Autumn/Fall. It’s just the best to me. I love the leaves changing and we get treated to quite the sight here in the Pacific Northwest. I love cool, crisp Fall days. Sure, we can get a day in the 80’s in early-Autumn, (we likely will this week,) but as I always tell everyone, the temperature slowly rises in Autumn, and it only hits that big number long enough to register it, then it plummets fast and we still get a cool evening and morning so it’s not like 85 or 90 degrees in the month of July.
I just like the fresh start of Autumn or Fall. In my working life before retirement, I was in 2 professions where the summer was a busy, hectic, culmination of the entire year. We started our next “year” in September. It is much like school. As a result, that’s always how my life worked: You start fresh in September and the Fall. My mind just looks at it that way. You also get football and you roll into the holiday period with Fall. I love all parts of it.
The Fisherman, he’s currently doing his analyzation of the condition of our front lawn after the summer. He’s not super-satisfied with it for this year, so he has these big plans for what he’s doing with it here this Fall. I always joke with him about predicting when he will have the ceremonial “Last Mowing” meaning when he will admit that the weather has changed enough to where he declares he won’t mow again until about March. We have no trees in our front or back yards that shed leaves but our neighbors all around us do, and it never fails that we get a massive wind storm in the Fall and all those leaves end up in our yard and I’m raking without having trees but that’s fine. Hey, it’s part of Fall.
When I mentioned football being part of Autumn, I failed to mention that we are a Green Bay Packers household. The Fisherman comes from a long line of Cheeseheads because all his family was born in Wisconsin. He is the only one not born there, but he was born in Tillamook, Oregon, so there is clearly a cheese theme going on with his family. As a result of that, the football season is a big thing with us, and I know Fall has rolled around when we start putting the Packers flags on our house and he starts playing the game where, when we go out somewhere and he’s wearing Packers’ clothing, he asks, “How long do you think it will take before we hear someone yell, ‘Go Pack Go!’?” I never win that wager because it happens so fast…and often. Those Packers fans are everywhere and I swear they find each other like Jedi Knights: “I sense a Cheesehead is near” and they just spot each other and start yelling “GO PACK GO!” It’s funny and part of Autumn.
Fall also is a great time for one of our dogs who is obsessed with wearing coats. I’m serious. She LOVES her coats and she has many. If you take one off and lay it somewhere that enables her to get to it, she will grab it and come over and fling it at your feet to tell you she wants to wear it and go for a walk or a ride. She does not love that summer means no coat-wearing. I haven’t broken out her coats yet, but Autumn means it’s any day now, when I let her wear a coat when she goes for a walk and she will be beaming with happiness.
I’ll have to remember to tell The Fisherman that soon he too can now start wearing a coat again. He has one with a “G” on it for the Green Bay Packers, of course.
Observations on getting used to being one of those gray-haired retired people 