Dearest Autumn,

To write of my love for you would be nearly impossible, for words cannot capture your beauty and very essence. But I shall try to give it my best attempt.

From the moment the sun rises orange among the treetops, you are on my mind. You fill my skies with vivid colours; pinks and purple erupt with red splashes across your vastness, as if the sky itself were on fire. You cast your glow upon everything you touch, lighting up the tiniest leaf clinging to its branch and illuminating a skyline forest of towering trees. Your light and warmth after a night of cold awakens the very soul of Mother Nature, calling good morning to all of her dwellers. Squirrels scurry from their tree top homes, ready for a day of foraging, birds call out in frenzied choruses as they hop from branch to branch.

There is a sparkle to the world as you kiss it good morning. I imagine the way the grass would sound right now, crunching beneath boots, echoing a hundred times through the frosted landscape. You have kissed my gardens to sleep, the last of the yellow sunflowers hang their heads in defeat. I have watched as the leaves on the trees have changed from green to yellow, and now lay carpeted on forest floors. You have changed the world around me into a beautiful masterpiece of art.

As I sit in the darkness of my kitchen, a cup of coffee steaming in my hands, I watch as the world unfurls before your very presence. I see all this from the large window in my kitchen, and then off in the distance my eye catches on something. Gentle beasts in our pasture out back have also risen to greet you this morning. Braying donkeys plod along the fenceline, searching for the perfect blade of grass that perhaps your friend Jack Frost has left behind. I ponder, do the donkeys love you like I do? Or do you steal away from them the warmth and abundance of their summer grazing, of warm nights and sunshine days. If the donkeys do not love you then I will love you tenfold, for what do silly beasts know anyways.

Even as a slight chill climbs my spine, sending little goosebumps scattering my arms, my love for you does not waiver. I rejoice in your cool and calm, for this means the arrival of sweater weather. Who could not sing your praises as they wrap themselves into warm wooly sweaters. I always did like your hugs best.

You have a way of bringing people together. Your changing of seasons is a time for families; to give thanks, to explore and to try something new. We went looking for you in the woods the other day, stumbling upon a little woodland pixie hidden in the foliage. Resting on a mossy bed, dressed in falls orange cloak. We gathered the leaves that you dropped from the trees, giving them one last hoorah before winters clutches turned them to compost. We piled them high and jumped with joy in their crinkling mess. I found you among the rows of apple trees, branches hanging with ripe fruit for picking. In the laughter of my child as she chewed on her first apple, seated bundled in her little red wagon. You called to me between the vining pumpkins, whispering between the orange globes at my feet. I saw your joy dancing in the eyes of my little girl, touching and feeling the coolness of a pumpkins skin for the first time. She will grow to love you as much as I do, this much I know to be true.

And my darling, outside with Mother Nature is not the only place I feel you these days. Within the walls of this farmhouse you have also left your mark. I glance at the shelves in the pantry, brimming with jars full of summer memories. Canning and preserves let us hold onto garden goodness in the depths of Winter, but they don’t fill the shelves until you have arrived. You fill the home with the delicious smell of fresh baked bread, your arrival marks the return of sourdough starters on the counter and baking always coming warm from the oven.

The woodstove crackles to life when you blanket us with the first dusting of snow. Firewood, cut by our own hands, stacked neatly on either side, and in long rows outside waiting to be needed. The aroma of warmth and comfort, the soft smoke rolling from the chimney. You are worth the work, gifting us with fallen trees for splitting and giving us this to the bone warmth only a woodfire could.

My dear friend, my love for you is unwavering, and while maybe only short lived in season, your presence has once again ignited my soul. You have lit a fire deep within that was only flickering, gasping for that sweet, cool air only you provide. I watch as the last signs of your beauty flicker before me, the last falling leaf, the last spot of grass browning in the lawn, or perhaps the way your daylight slowly retreats, getting further and further away. I hold onto these fleeting moments, knowing we will meet again one day. Once the storms of Winter have passed, once the buds of Spring have long since blossomed, and once the hot days of Summer have exhausted their stay, you will come again.

Until then, I wait.

Signed yours ever sincerely,

A little wild farmer.