Like many people I know, I consider fall to be the best time of year.
Whenever this season arrives, it brings with it a general sense of relief and calm. While temperatures in these parts can still be a bit on the high side in early fall, that oppressively hot-and-humid stuff is usually in the rearview mirror for another seven months or so.
And there is arguably no better time to enjoy the scenery of the Ozarks, with colors changing in the region’s vast forested areas and nature doing a general about-face.
I also like the sounds of fall. Gone are the incessant, overbearing calls of millions of cicadas and tree frogs, which has been replaced by the more musical and pleasant singing of a much smaller number of crickets.
Birds seem more active, too, which stands to reason since they can maneuver around more energetically without being concerned with super-heated air masses. They seem more carefree and laid back as they go about the stuff birds go about.
For some reason, my wife and I have noticed far more small lizards on our property high above the Big Piney River this year, and they’re popping up more now that climatic conditions have eased a bit. We’re not sure if they’re like a swarm of babies, or members of a species that stays small, but they sure are cute to watch as they scamper from one rocky shelter to another in the front yard or appear and disappear where the lawn meets the walkway.
Of course, fall also means leaves obscuring driveways and storms of acorns creating a tricky and potentially dangerous groundcover. There’s a gigantic (and I mean huge), 100-plus-year-old oak on our property that is wonderful to behold on many levels (and I’ve actually told it that in basic English). But this year it’s an absolute acorn machine, dropping thousands of the little round nut packages on our back yard deck and all the surrounding territory within range of falling or bouncing acorns. The truth is, you can’t beat them, so all you can do is try to contain them.
The ongoing acorn storm is pretty impressive, really, and it’s good to know that they will eventually disappear after being eaten by some sort of four-legged critter or simply naturally decaying. But for now, we almost feel like we should ask visitors to wear a hard hat when in the proximity of this massive plant.
Alas, this particular fall is accompanied by the same weird (and sometimes scary) stuff that goes along with all seasons these days. Everywhere you look, there’s always something, like the most bizarre presidential campaign of my lifetime (and perhaps all lifetimes), wars being waged in multiple locations on Earth, and threats to society delivered by both familiar and new sources.
And then there’s that seemingly endless stream of nonsense being paraded around as fact by a mainstream media hell-bent on pushing an agenda. It’s enough to make a person want to scream and throw up.
But none of that dampens the overall effect of fall. It’s just a really nice time of year that presents plenty of reasons to be thankful (other than acorns).
Doug Davison is a writer, photographer and newsroom assistant for the Houston Herald. Email: ddavison@houstonherald.com.
