Passing of thyme

Fall is just around the corner, and pardon me if I’m just a bit giddy about it. Fall has for the longest time been my favorite season, not that spring, summer and winter don’t offer their own enticements, but fall has a certain allure that I look forward to.

I don’t intend to advance the already hurried clip of time, but the crisp bite to the air, the smell of pumpkin pie and cinnamon baked apples, and hikes along trails with the constant crunch of fallen leaves underfoot are pleasures that don’t come often enough and pass by too swiftly in my judgment.

Growing up in Colorado, fall was often cut short by falling snows hailing hard winters which would last, many times, into summer. I often joke with people that Colorado has two seasons; summer and winter, and it wasn’t until I moved out east that I understood the transitions between heat and cold and the subtleties that celebrate the changing of the seasons.

This year, as always, I’ll take the family to the pumpkin patch to pick their own pumpkins (last year we brought back way too many pumpkins), we’ll take long hikes, and we’ll carve jack o’lanterns, watch Legend of Sleepy Hollow on TV and head to the Creepy Hollow Haunted Hayride in Richmond. We’ll sit on the swing in the yard bundled up in sweaters while a fire crackles in the outdoor fireplace, telling ghost stories and watching the season pass into winter.

These are the things playing in mind while the echo of a lawnmower outside informs that I’m a bit premature, and I just might have time to get one last BBQ in before it’s too late.

Go Denver Broncos!