Fall is here.

[Orlun]

Today was one of those days I like best... Sunny, cool, dry fall day. Time to get out and get the yard and garage ready for winter. Put the hoses away, throw out all the summer junk and clutter, get the snow blower out and in its ready position in the garage. Then, when you finished and all is quiet, sit out on the patio around a nice warm crackling fire and sip hot chocolate and enjoy the sunset.

Let the winter bring what it may... I am ready for it.

[Sergo]

And high time, I say! I've been enduring football season without football weather. Yesterday was our first cool day in East Tennessee, and the oak leaves are having a small convention on my back deck. (I think they're going to nominate Al Gore.) Fall is my favorite season. Here's to fires, cocoa, and sunsets!

[Raya]

I too am a fall lover. I'm originally from "down east" and always loved the gorgeous hues of the maple leaves. Early fall is the best, where the leaves are turning their scarlets, bronze, gold and orange, yet the grass is still green. Days are warm and lazy, with only the occasional surviving fly buzzing around--no mosquitoes, no midges, no nasty wasps. Night are crisp and require comforters and the occasional furnace run to keep the house at habitable temperatures.

Even out west, autumn is gorgeous. Instead of the scarlets of the east, we have the brazen gold of the west. Leaves get raked into bonfires and people with fireplaces start burning their carefully hoarded firewood. The air is permeated with the fragrances of fall--woodsmoke, burning leaves, the sun-warmed wine of the air.

I am inspired to get my patio plants down and pulled, because they have been killed by the nighttime frost. But the little pine tree is thriving and the gazebo furniture is warm in the daytime sun. It's fun to sit out there and remember the excesses of summer, and live in the cool, beautiful conservatism of autumn.

[Skarlath]

Cool, crisp days are all well and good, but autumn is too easily associated with rain over here. I don't like rain. :(

[Elrar (of Silky Venom)]

We just had 3 days of rain, and now its cold crisp at cloudy, but new england has some of hte most beutiful fall days with Foliage and everything.

Fally skies are amazing!!! So dramatic :D