Fall Reflections and a Halloween Cutie

I know we've all moved on from Halloween, but can we spare just a moment to take one last look at these pictures of Ford?

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2013

Halloween 2014

Thank you for indulging me. 

I love Fall. Festivals, football, fairs, pumpkin picking, trick or treating, hay riding, you name it…I'm game. In the South, Fall breathes new life into all of us who thought we might literally melt before summer ended. Folks have a new pep in their step when they can finally walk outside and not be attacked by gnats. Ugh. The humidity has lifted, and with it, our spirits. 

In the area where we live now, fall days mean roads crowded with peanut and cotton wagons. It causes quite the rural traffic jam and as inconvenient as it is to travel 25 miles per hour down the highway, it does give you a chance to pause and admire the hard work of a farmer. A wagon filled to the brim with peanuts is quite an accomplishment.  A cloud of cotton pulled behind a pickup truck is a thing to be admired. They are the fruits of a long season of labor. I can't help but want to give all of the tractor drivers and wagon pullers a congratulatory fist pump when I pass them by to head along my way, "Way to go!" "You did it!" "That's a fine crop!" I contain myself and settle for a more socially acceptable head nod. 

 There are so many peanuts being harvested and fields turned over that the air here in our little town smells like fresh, dark dirt. It smells so good and warm and it reminds us that we are moving out of the season of harvesting and in to a season of thanksgiving. It's no coincidence that one follows the other; they go hand in hand.  Another crop brought in, another year that the Lord has sustained us by His hand. 

"Here I raise my Ebenezer, hither by thy help I've come"