Fall has become the season of pumpkin-spiced everything.
It can’t really feel like fall until football season, Oktoberfest and pumpkin-spiced lattes make an entrance.
It’s my favorite season of the whole year. The weather cools down and I gather in what’s left of the summer garden. My mind prepares for shorter days ahead. I love the change of foliage and watching deer herds run amuck on our land. Arkansas’ fall is much too short in my opinion. I have to soak up every bit of it.
Harvest festivals are a special way we gather with friends and neighbors at the end of the growing season to celebrate the bounty. I love funnel cakes and craft fairs – most fall festivals fail to disappoint. With this year being an election year, there has been no shortage of campaign supporters either. It’s America at its best.
Growing up, one of my favorite book and television series was “Little House on the Prairie.” My daughters share my love for Half Pint and her pioneer family’s trials and tribulations. I grew up not far from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s final home in Mansfield, Mo. In September, my children and I had an opportunity to partake in a couple of festivals in Missouri. One of them was Wilder Days in Mansfield.
There is something patriotic about a small town community transforming its square with music, food and fanfare.
When we arrived at the festival, we took in face painting, balloon making and eating delicious treats from the food trucks. My oldest daughter spotted the booth with old fashioned smocked dresses and bonnets right away.
My mother had been on the hunt for one in her size for quite some time. When we stopped to browse, we found one in her signature color and size. It must’ve been fate.
When I asked the creator of the dress if we could go into a store on the square to try it out, she obliged. Once my daughter put it on and it fit, she didn’t want to take it off! We paid for the dress and my 10-year-old was transformed into “Little Laura” for the rest of the day.
I’m sure Laura and Almanzo Wilder gathered with their community back in the day to celebrate summer’s end. I thought about my husband who had worked hard all summer cutting hay. He had stayed home to gather in the final hay crop to prepare for our winter. It was fun walking back through time in the Wilder family’s farm house and checking out the museum relics. It made me appreciate modern farm life an awful lot.
So, ignore the Christmas decorations already out in many retail stores. Take time to stop and count your blessings as summer has come to its close. I hope this season provides you an opportunity to gather with loved ones in your community.
Celebrate the harvest, football or a pumpkin-flavored treat, neighbor.
