I woke up this morning and it is a lot cooler than it has been.

The nip of autumn is in the air and it rained last night, the hummingbirds have migrated and gone as have some other song birds already. It is still raining today, drizzling, overcast gray clouds that hang heavy with rain.

I expect after this rain which is expected for a couple of days we will get the killing frost that will wipe out our tomatoes and other garden produce.

We need to get 2 more loads of firewood in this weekend and we will have 12 cords for the winter. Squirrels have been cutting cones heavy and littering our yard with the debris.

Time to fold and put away summer garb and get out the warm sweaters and other parphenalia we will soon need for winter.

I am not much for winter months though we need the snowfall for watersheds and to dampen drought.

But I am nearly ready for winter, have a huge stack of books to read. Preserves and things put up in the larder for winter food. Once I get the warmer clothing out and that last couple of loads of wood and hubby drags the generator up to the house we should be pretty well set.

We could get snow as early as Halloween up here in the mountains where we live. I am not looking forward to the snow. First I don't care for the cold stuff, though it is beautiful when it first falls and whitens the ground and trees. But it gets nasty and dirty quickly, it is cold and it means ski season for the avid skier's that trek up to the lodge 10 miles above us.

Don't get me wrong I have nothing against skiing personally though I don't ski. It is just the road is narrow and in dry weather it is 30 miles an hour. It has a lot of blind curves on it and is dangerous. But skiiers anxious to be the first on the slopes don't heed the speed limit which is about 20 in winter. But they come barreling around curves at 50 and 60 miles and hour on icy roads. Pulling out from the road we live on. Onto the state highway is dangerous because both going and coming we have blind curves we cannot see around.

Spring, summer and fall some folks speed but winter it is plain crazy. Not only do the skier's speed there is a line of about 15-20 cars one after the other. Some going up and some going down. I always breath a sigh of relief when we get out on the road. But usually by the time we are out we have someone right on our tail end.

They hate it when I drive 20 miles an hour but hey I am not going to slide off the road if I can help it. We have to watch out for deer all the time too and often trees weakened by snowfall might come crashing into the highway. My husband carries a chainsaw with us in winter months and a shovel.

So no not much looking forward to winter.

But I do love the autumn colors of the leaves as they turn all shades of, red, yellow, orange, russet and purples. It is beautiful and the tang of woodsmoke in the area is great.

Autumn brings hunting season too and my son is getting his hunting gear ready to go out first day of the season. He hunts on our 24 acres or goes over to our daughters and hunts on their 20 acres. He has not failed to get his buck yet. Then comes the processing of the meat which I don't much care to do, but it helps feed us through the winter.

Well no doubt about it fall is for sure here. We might get a week or two of "Indian Summer" but mostly now autumn has arrived and time to get the winter gear and garb out. We could get snow in 4-6 weeks. See ya all next spring, time for hibernation. LOL