How do seasons change here? Let me count the ways...

Autumn has always been my favorite time of year. I love endless banks of gorgeous colored leaves; they seem to be celebrating the past year's achievements before letting go to make room for new growth. I love the crisp, cool mornings and evenings. I love the sound my feet make shuffling through carpets of dried leaves, and the musty smell that rises every time I take a step. I love the hint of smoke that rises on the air...a spicy middle note of the ambrosia to my senses that is autumn.

I do miss Northern autumns. In South Mississippi's warm, Gulf Coast climate the seasons are not so clearly delineated. Folks around here are wont to describe spring or fall as "raggedy". Autumn is not the glorious display of color that it is in other parts of the country. Although puncutated by an occasional flaming orange maple or brilliant red crepe myrtle, the piney woods stay green. How then, you might ask, do we mark the season without the changing of the colors?

You know it's fall when...

10. You actually don't run the A/C for a whole week.
9. An occasional punch of fall color pops out and startles you on a drive through the piney woods.
8. The love bugs are finally GONE!
7. Pine straw gets stuck in your flip flops when you walk.
6. There are only 2 vehicles in line at the ice machine.
5. Winter clothes appear in the store: t-shirts and shorts in darker colors.
4. The morning dew doesn't burn off the grass until at least 7 am.
3. Turnips and sweet 'taters replace watermelons in the back of pickup trucks on the side of the road.
2. You get pelted with acorns from a live oak while soaking up the sunshine.
1. It's so frigid outside in the morning that you really have to bundle up on your way into work, so you dig a sweatshirt out of winter storage.


*Stay tuned for "Signs of Winter in the Deep South: Are the Fire Ants Hibernating YET??"