Many people hate fall. Maybe it portends winter but I think it goes back to our childhoods when summer ended and school began. But that has nothing to do with the beauty of dying leaves, cool, comfortable temperatures, lack of precipitation, and all the other benefits that occur during autumn i.e. a parking place at the mall.
Autumn has special significance around our house this year because of the completion of Solar Park. That’s the one-third of our property that has been inaccessible and weed-ridden until we installed our solar power system five years ago and built a stairway and landscaping into it last month. Now it not only provides a beautiful and much less treacherous walk into our little piece of nature including our nominal scrub oak “forest”. It provides a view of our house (above) which gives me a reinvigorated sense of place: something I’ve constantly sought in all the places I’ve lived (Colorado, Minnesota, Vermont, Michigan, etc.).
Now that the stairs and path are finished, I plan on putting up an owl house (we have a couple flying around here at night) and even a blind to record bird and animal activity in the woods. It proves again that a home can be more than just a building. It can be a sanctuary bringing us joy in every square inch, inside and out, and letting us enjoy the seasons in our own special way- especially this one.
