My Favorite Month

From 2019- My Favorite Month

Another October is fixing to come around. My favorite month of the year. My birth month. The “season changing” month, as we usually have our first frost here in the South during October. It’s a month of beautiful colors, courtesy of Mother Nature and her leaf filled trees. All the russet reds, and every shade of gold imaginable. I can’t count the times I’ve simple just stood at the foot of some large hill, or short mountain and gazed up in awe at the beauty.

I love the smell of burning leaves, and of the sweet wood firing up in people’s fireplaces and wood stoves. It’s a lot of work to do it on a regular basis as your only source of heating though. I tried it for a couple of cold winters back in the eighties, and gained a very healthy respect for our ancestors who used to have to roll out of bed early on those frosty mornings, and stoke up a warming fire! I went back to gas!

I love the bright orange pumpkins laying out in the fields, and the fresh rolled and bailed hay all stacked up neatly. The corn stalks gathered up in big circles, looking like giant teepees.

I thrill at the flights of birds overhead. The Canadian geese, and the blackbirds which still fill the tall trees. I remember as a child, laying in the brown October grass and watching millions of those blackbirds headed South overhead. I couldn’t believe there were so many. Now, there aren’t that many.

There’s Halloween at the end of the month, the day we always used to look forward to most as children. I mean, what kid wouldn’t? Free candy! Tricky tricks! All in good fun for the most part. No store bought costumes for me though. Usually it was some variation of one of Mom’s old bed sheets a’la’ Charlie Brown. (Who by the way, shares the same birthday as me) I suppose I’m more than a little bit like that boy!

October is the gateway to Thanksgiving and then to the Christmas season, which makes me love it even more. My family used to visit my Grandparents more during this time of the year, and I will always remember those days of fun and enjoyment of my youth. Those long ago days, which started in October. My favorite month. My favorite times…