It's Fall!  Hurray.  And yesterday was Hobbit Day (being the birthdays of both Bilbo and Frodo).  This year I read through The Hobbit over summer to fulfill my yearly Tolkien obligation.  There are some books I haven't gotten around to, plus I've received some new ones because of a new local book store.  So I wanted to make room on my plate.

Things are changing in our home for sure.  With all the boys adults or teenage, the old time fall activities will be waning.  We'll still come together to do a few of the staples, but times being what they are, and time constraints being what they are, we imagine there will be fewer of the little things than in years past.  Which is fine.

After all, the world is changing fast, as is our society:

With an all out war on any tradition from west of the Urals, our society seems a strange mix of traditions most people do and those in the extreme fringes seeking to throw down those traditions.  In 2020 I actually saw articles from 'pagans' wanting to reclaim Halloween from the Church.  We all know what Thanksgiving has been hit with.  Christmas is still allowed as a more or less secular pagan consumerist feeding frenzy, but not much else. These are driven by the extreme fringes, but those fringes have been weaponzid by the media and the powers that be.  How long the old traditions last will be anyone's guess.

For our part, we'll still be those radicals and rebels.  We'll embrace the old time harvest feel.  No puss zombies or adult entertainment costumes for us.  It's caramel apples and apple cider, pumpkins and cornstalks, ghosts and goblins, haunted houses and spook movies. 

With that said, I'll step back and let old James Whitcomb Riley take it from here.  You can't do better than this for setting that autumnal mood:

When the Frost is on the Pumpkin

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock,
And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens,
And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it's then's the times a feller is a-feelin' at his best,
With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bare-headed, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

They's something kindo' harty-like about the atmusfere
When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here
Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossums on the trees,
And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and buzzin' of the bees;
But the air's so appetizin'; and the landscape through the haze
Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days
Is a pitcur' that no painter has the colorin' to mock
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,
And the raspin' of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn;
The stubble in the furries --kindo' lonesome-like, but still
A-preachin' sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill;
The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;
The hosses in theyr stalls below -- the clover overhead!
O, it sets my hart a-clickin' like the tickin' of a clock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock!

Then your apples all is getherd, and the ones a feller keeps
Is poured around the cellar-floor in red and yeller heaps;
And your cider-makin' 's over, and your wimmern-folks is through
With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and sausage, too!
I don't know how to tell it -- but ef sich a thing could be
As the Angels wantin' boardin', and they'd call around on me
I'd want to 'commondate 'em -- all the whole-indurin' flock --
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock!