The Autumn Season.

 I can tell autumn is here.  It's grey, it's rainy, it's cool.  Our token squirrel has been doing the squirreling away of acorns onto the giant crevice of one of our ancient elm trees.

I am happy.  Therefore, it must be autumn.

I kid you not: I wake up gloriously happy, with a song in my heart and a plan for my day. 

This doesn't necessarily happen in the hot months.  In the hot months, I furtively plan my day, sliced into two polarized sections:  Pre-dawn mornings, and post-sunset evenings (if even, the latter.)  Even in the house, if the temperature eaks its way too far upward, my system shuts down into inactivity.  I find myself sitting and doing..nothing productive.  It's times like that, when I find myself cranking down the AC, "to take the edge off", and you know what?   It's miraculous!  A few degrees cooler, and I am once again a worker bee.  I am up for anything, 50º or cooler.

But let me tell you, the past few weeks have been happy ones.  I am once again doing my 2x daily yoga.  (Don't panic; I do fun stretches and balancing acts to prepare for the NEXT time I fall off my bicycle and into a sorghum field.  No Cirque du Soleil nonsense here.) 

This week I decided to trek out to the Konza Prairie each morning to hike.  What fun!  What beauty.  And, what energy that lasted me the whole day long.  Physical and mental energy from those happy, happy hikes out in nature.

What did I see on my morning hikes?  Lots of wild turkeys. Some really pretty (and unafraid) deer.  Three bluebirds.  A dead skunk.  (Yep: the eau de skunk was prevalent.)  And buffalo!  How fun is it, to hike out on a prairie, and see a herd (albeit smallish?) of buffalo, going about their herdish things?!  What a great week of autumn.  The leaves were a'tumblin'.

Next week sees me enjoying autumn in Colorado.  I hope there are still aspen to behold in their golden glory.  If not, I hope that there is snow, or at least a lingering frost, to behold in its premature season. And I shall find some hikes and climbs and this will take me on to November and the coming holidays and frolicks!