It's Fall, Y'all!

I love the golden colors of the fall season! The cooler weather of the past few days has motivated me to begin decorating with these splashes of color, especially nice when the skies are grey, and even better in the soft rays of autumn sunshine!

I had been waiting for the pumpkin shipments to come in at my favorite store, absolutely the best place in town to buy them. They are bigger, have more "personality" with the long stems and often quirky lop-sidedness, not to mention cheaper. A huge one and a medium-size one sat on my patio bench for a couple of days until they found a home in my garden wagon.

Going down into the basement for fall flowers I had stored, I found not only that, but farm baskets, one holding a stuffed, calico turkey wearing a straw hat, and two others, one in which I plopped a floppy scarecrow on top of a still-new burlap coffee bag. Another smaller scarecrow stands stiffly astride the side of the other burlap-draped basket on the porch.

In a storage closet I found a straw pumpkin to fill with the orange and yellow mums from the basement, and a pinky-orange, ceramic pumpkin that looks cute on the dining room table with fall leaves peeping out under the green-stemmed lid.

A yellow, potted chrysanthemum was already on the porch steps, but I needed a few more flowers to add color. We were happily surprised to find a couple of pots at close-out prices, and another of just the right size and rusty-red color to complement the pumpkins.

It just occurred to me what is missing from my fall vignette. A bale of hay! Maybe I can get a small, decorative bale today. I can put it in the wagon with the pumpkins. I noticed yesterday from the road they are not as visible as I would have liked, so we'll see how the hay helps.

We rejoice with the coming of each new season God has given us, but I think fall is my favorite one. I think of the poem I memorized in high school by Emily Dickinson that goes: "The morns are meeker than they were, the nuts are getting brown. The berry's cheek is plumper, the rose is out of town. The maple wears a gayer scarf, the field a scarlet gown, Lest I should be old fashioned, I'll put a trinket on."

Must be the reason I like to decorate!