Slept with the windows open last night, so pleasant and cool. The critters were quiet. The train whistles loud and lonely. The morning was just perfect when I walked out on the porch to walk Penelope. Father Sky had painted his sky canvas a deep azure blue, cloudless and clear in the bright sunshine. I walked down the street, over the oak root’s broken up sidewalk next door, and stood under a large water oak while the yellow leaves of fall swirled down around me like a rain shower. Penelope even stopped sniffing to look up and watch the leaves float down. I had never noticed till this year the leaves pirouette to the ground in their last dance with the wind.

My yard is full songbirds this morning. I’m hearing a few black capped chickadees singing and it sounds just like they are saying, “cheeseburger, cheeseburger!” A little titmouse landed on a branch by the chickadees and the titmouse is saying, “right here, right here!” Guess they found a bird McDonald’s at one of the feeders. You research bird calls and it’s amazing how many are described as words and phrases. I’ve only learned a few bird calls but I’m slowly identifying the rest of them. I bet my daddy knew them all. He would occasionally whistle a bird call and get an answer. Always thrilled me.

Been trying to keep up with all the birds I see this morning — bright red cardinals and their mates, a wood thrush, some black capped chickadees and titmice, several doves, blue jays, a mockingbird, purple finches and across the street I see Eastern blue birds, a pileated woodpecker, and several more blue jays. Lots of birdies enjoying this beautiful day the Lord has made.

I sat in the swing at dusk, watching the sun set tonight as a fiery orange ball, burning the horizon peach and pink, as she lay her head down. I bet Father Sky singed his face when he bent down to turn off the day’s light and welcome the darkness. He hung a few twinkling stars in the navy blue sky canopy but his moon is still hidden from my view.

I love fall. I wonder if the word fall, used to describe the season before winter, came from the leaves falling off the trees. I love to watch the leaves change their colors and I love to watch them let go of their branches and softly ride the wind to the ground. Chief and I always brought each other the first beautiful fall leaf we found on the ground. The fall colors are so beautiful. I call them earth colors. If I could create a custom box of Crayola crayons I’d call them earth and sunset colors.

Keats called fall the “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.” Autumn to me signals Alabama and Auburn football games, pumpkin harvests, darker nights, cooler temperatures, Mother Nature’s beautifully artistry in the coloring of the falling leaves, visits from the migrating song birds. I need to be stocking up on sun flowers seeds. Last fall and spring the birds were eating 20 pounds a week.

Fall is a season of energy and activities, a rebirth from the scorching heat of the summer, a transition to the quiet of winter. Fall is cozy with her cooler temperatures, colorful cardigans, hot chocolate, the smells of wood smoke from fireplaces. Fall brinngs the promise of the coming holidays. Some of us feel moments of melancholy with the changing seasons. I know I do as I anticipate the holidays with two empty chairs at my family’s dinner table. But life goes on and the leaves of the trees soothe my soul with their wondrous colors and cheerful dances as they float to earth. Mother Nature paints the fall landscape so beautifully in anticipation of the darker days of winter and the bareness of the horizon.

Fall bring new sounds to my porch, too. The noise of football games and band performance half times float to my porch on Friday nights. I love hearing the loud honks of an occasional flock of migrating geese, the quiet rustling of falling leaves, the ping of acorns hitting the tin roof next door, the noise of the naked tree branches slapping together in the wind, keeping the beat in my yard symphony. I love hearing the squirrels and blue jays chatter as they collect their acorns and the the crickets singing outside my open bedroom windows at night. I love the lonesomeness of the train wail in the fall as it travels the steel rails, clicking and clacking on its journey, following its echo down the tracks.

Fall is time for a new direction. Fall teaches us that change is a constant denominator in our lives. Just as the trees lose their leaves, we need to learn to let go of the leaves of worry and doubt that strip our lives of happiness and accept that some seasons our trees will be full of beautiful leaves and in other seasons our trees will drop their leaves, the leaves turning brown and crispy under our feet. With prayer and a thoughtful heart we can learn to let our leaves drop in God’s hands.

“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall,” — F. Scott Fitzgerald