Next to "Michigan strawberries" (that being the middle half of June), fall is my favorite season. It's another one of the reasons that I love our state so very much, because not much beats the richness of colored leaves reflected in lake water, and we have a lot of colored leaves, and a lot of lakes.
Fall in our house is many things. It is Jon's birthday month. It is the month of Halloween, my second favorite holiday. It is a month of putting gardens to bed, and switching meals from simply grilled to oven savory. We live our seasons as fully as we can. We eschew the air conditioning in summer, and only reluctantly shut the house to fall cold snaps and the blustery weather that follows. We eat foods that are in season, or at least seasonally in style, switching to fall squash when the summer squash is done.
Fall is also tailgates, and the first days of indoor homeschool group and a new semester of classes there. It is always magical to me how, as the earth cools and the frigid winds come, our homes and our lives get warmer in color, in cooking, and in habit. And just as I love the shedding of layers in spring, I love the adding of them in the fall.
The everything there is a season.
