Smoke and Leaves and Potatoes

Harvest Vacation!

In my childhood, those were the best words this time of year. Getting out of school for 3 whole weeks so that the farmers had extra hands to help them pick potatoes. When I was a kid, there were still farmers in Hodgdon, Maine that used pickers, not harvesters. I was too young to actually be "employed" to do the job, but when they got to the fields beside my house, I'd go join my older cousins and pick right beside them. I wanted to be a part of it and to say I had the experience. Due to my age, I don't have all the fond memories that others do of those early, brisk mornings, rainy afternoons and long hours in the fields. But I have my own memories...

Autumn has always been my favorite time of the year (though I really enjoy summer as well). There is a distinct smell in the air that comes around the end of September and early October. It's hard to explain if you have never experienced it. It's a crisp smell. A clean smell. The smell of earth being turned to harvest crops, smoke from a pile of burning leaves and colder days on the horizon. Spring brings the smell of mud and new life. Fall brings the smell of the earth preparing for winter.

Yes, the days are colder, but it's a wonderful feeling to wrap yourself in a warm sweatshirt and sit beside a crackling camp fire roasting hot dogs or marshmallows. Or sit on the back of a awaken and ride through the dark woods and farm roads while the wind whistles through your hair. To get up in the morning and be greeted with a chilly day but know that by afternoon, it will be warmer. (Those days will soon be gone and the cold will be there to stay).

But more than the smells and more than anything else, there are the COLORS! If you have never had the privilege of seeing the leaves turn all colors of reds and yellows and oranges, then you, my friend, are truly missing out. It is an experience that I believe you should have before you die. It is AMAZING! God is amazing. Amazing that the leaves change so beautifully and gracefully before quietly, falling to the ground is such a romantic thing. The leaves are most definitely my favorite part of Fall. How could they not be?

So, why do I write this? Why express this to you? For this reason my friends: This year, I will miss it. I will miss it all. And it is strange. It's strange to get up in the morning and have it be warm. It's strange that it's still 90 degrees during the day, every day. It is strange that everything is still so green. No special smell or change of colors.

And yet, it is wonderful how God did not make the whole country the same. That we can go to a different part of the Land we call home and experience such different things. I like where I am (the south), but I LOVE where I'm from (the north) and no matter where I go or end up I'll always be a "County Girl" from Maine, "The way life should be".