Fall: Come and Gone?

As I sit on my couch, wrapped in a deliciously large fleece blanket, wearing fuzzy slipper boots and surfing my usual blogs, I wonder if my favorite part of fall is already over. The mountains are dusted with snow, and the lawn out back is soggy as a wet sponge. I'm craving pumpkin, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg. I took the time to make real oatmeal this morning. And while I enjoy fleece blankets, pumpkin and spice, hot oatmeal and even snow...Ican't help missing the few days out of the year when fall has definitely arrived, but it is still warm enough to wear your favorite t-shirt.

Over conference weekend, the boys (Mark, Dave, Jeff, Brian, and Uncle Tenney) headed up to the Uintahs to do real man's work, cutting down trees (literally, cutting them down, and sweetie, I'm glad you weren't crushed under any as apparantly there was a close call) and loading them into Mark's trailer and Tenney's truck. My parents are coming back from San Diego in the dead of an Oakley winter, which often gets cold enough to freeze your nostrils solidly together. My mom usually keeps at least two big woodburning stoves going constantly in the winter in Oakley, and that means a lot of wood.

I spent the afternoon enjoying my favorite kind of fall day--warm, fragrant, and brilliantly colored. It doesn't matter that I have walked the path along the ditch probably thousands of times in my life--it very seldom fails to take my breath away and rejuvinate me. The piles of aspen leaves gather on the water and make a nice contrast to the silky green moss undulating beneath the surface.  

 And you can't help but stop on your walk and sit on the bridge. Sometimes I'd spend a long time just listening to the water and beng fascinated by its movement.

 And when I returned the boys were hard at work cuttingup those logs.

 Isn't there just something neat about cattails? I remember when these first showed up in the pond...for some inexplicable reason I thought that was the coolest thing ever. A part of me still does...

Oh, warm fall days, how brief you are...