Autumn is Awesome

I know there’s a lot of people out there who love summer. Traditionally, it makes sense. There’s a lot you can do outside. There’s fresh produce. There’s the wonderful summer vacation as a kid. Personally, however, summer has always been my least favorite season. It’s growing on me some as I get older, but summer involves a lot of heat and bugs, and I’m not a fan of either. (Maine is lovely when it comes to heat, at least. It rarely gets too hot here. Bugs . . . not so much.)

So I’m always really happy to hit September each year. It means I’ve gotten through another summer and I have nothing but fun to look forward to for the next nine months or so. For years, winter has been my favorite season, and I still love it, but as I think about it, autumn might win out in my mind these days.

Autumn is the Friday of the seasons for me. It’s the season that starts off the weekend. Summer is Monday through Thursday. The work week. But Autumn means that the fun is just beginning.

The leaves change color and fall to the ground. I love the smell of rotting leaves, though I know that probably sounds crazy. The nights are chilly, and it gets cold enough to start lighting fires in the wood stove now and then. Football season gets going. You’ve got the best streak of holidays just gearing up: Halloween into Thanksgiving into Christmas into New Years into Groundhog Day.

Autumn is full of delicious foods. Pumpkins and apples. Cinnamon. The kids go back to school, which means I don’t feel as sorry for myself heading into work each day. The grass even stops growing, so you don’t need to mow it anymore.

Really, it’s hard to think of anything wrong with Autumn. Mice move in from outside, so you can hear some scurrying in the walls. It’s the time of year I traditionally do a lot of the home renovation projects, so we spend a lot of money in September and October?

Winter’s still the best, with its heavy snows and blazing wood stoves, but Autumn earns top marks for its place in the yearly cycle.