Too many rabbits this year so the fox and hawk will have an easy winter. The deer are almost fat from an easy winter last year and a lush green table set for them by mother nature, they will do well unless the winter turns out to be as the old time forecasters are signaling. The caterpillars have lots of fuzzy, the woodchucks are a fat, furry tan color and all those other methods almost lost to the impersonal satellite methods. Better weather predictions now? I wonder.

There are other reasons for my preferring the Fall. Summer chores are almost finished, the rush of vacations in now a memory of photos tucked away until some relative pays a visit. Not as much chance of that happening anymore, TV and busy schedules now with the kids back in school. This is to say nothing of powerful computers that allow us to chat daily anywhere in the world. In some ways that is better, just type a line to a cousin, click send and disappears for a few seconds and sometimes is answered a few seconds after that. Some advancements are nice. Maybe it is an exchange... faster, more often, communication replacing that letter that didn�t get written and mailed. The downside is visits are shorter now, relatives rarely visit for a couple weeks or a month... fitting in the home schedule, helping prepare the meals and sharing the daily chores [as an Aunt wrote in her diary, "Cousin Clara and I did the work", meaning baking bread, pies etc.]. Now it is more likely to sound like, "which restaurant do you prefer?" Better? You be the judge.