I walk out of the house in the mornings, and I am shocked. After the darkness of night, when all the colors fade into black and gray, I open my door to the fragile shades and textures that only the early morning sun can bring. The leaves rattle in the morning breeze and then fall to my feet regretfully, their season over, finding perfection in their last moment, painting the landscape in a carpet of color. In October, they are beautiful. The bluestem and Indian grass is lit in morning fire, the seed heads like candled flame in the slicing light. The blues and greens intersect into foggy canyons, and the prairie rolls into the distance beyond, in shades of amber and prairie red. My eyes each morning, are born in the beauty of October.

The rains came in the middle of the month, and the rye wheat we planted is coming up green and tall. Fat turkeys are out in the fields scratching up the seed, and the deer look up and watch me before they fade again into the blue woods. The calf crop is still in the corral, calm now and quiet, their weaning almost done.
Soon we will work them up, and then let them out onto the green fields to fatten.

I feel rich, as if I inherited this serenity, and am unworthy of it. I fear that it will be taken away suddenly, like an early winter storm, so I am grateful for these perfect mornings of dramatic color. I am thankful of the season; the cool nights, and warm days, fleeting as they are. I can smell winter in the mornings, like the fog over the ponds, until the sun rises, and reaches down into the shadows, and warms again my optimism.

The garden is on its last legs. There is okra and peppers and spinach still, and we savor them, as the last we will have for months. The hay is all cut and baled, and stacked in long rows near the house.
The cows are grazing the bermudagrass now, the only green left, other than the early ryegrass growing in the shadows of the oak trees. We are all preparing, all growing our coats thicker for the coming storms of November.

I have sharpened up my chain saw, and take treks into the woods to find the windblown limbs that have fallen across the fences.
We cut the easiest limbs first. Then later, we will cut the bodark, elm, and honey oak. I like cutting firewood, two or three times a week. My wife goes with me, and we go off in the gator, and fill the small dump bed with wood.

We both enjoy it very much. We warmed the house all winter last year with wood, and did not once turn on the propane heat. The kids like it too. They now stand like they have seen me do, rubbing their hands together in the glow of the woodstove. There is nothing better in the evenings to light the stove and smell the pecan and honey oak burn.

We had a guest pastor at the Methodist Church last Sunday. The sermon was about forgiveness, and discarding the eighty percent of contentious issues that keep us apart from our family and friends. It was about building relationships on what is important:
love, respect, and dedication, and forgiving and forgetting the rest. I saw Max and Georgie at church last week, and we smiled and visited like we always do. Georgie encouraged me to continue this paper, and her kindness to me was opportune.
Her friendship with me, is a big reason I continue writing. I saw Max at the gas station filling up later in the week, and he was happy and greeted me, and we visited for a moment. It was a beautiful morning, and he had just had coffee with his farmer buddies, and was getting ready to go home. Max had no idea his life was getting ready to change. When he got home he found that Georgie had passed away.

I watch my children get off the school bus in the afternoons; they stand in the yard and yell up to their classmates still in the bus, and say goodbye. They are so full of life and joy. The dogs run in circles, and jump upon the round bales, and bark happily. I watch them run through the bright fallen leaves, and laugh as they throw them into the air. As the leaves flutter brightly to the ground, I see Georgie's smile at church, and the laughter between friends. I see the smiles upon cheeks pressing against the school bus windows, waving goodbye. I see my wife throwing firewood into the back of the gator, sweat upon her sweet brow, as she pauses and looks at me, and we share a look of love.
I see the seasons change, and the colors fade, like the pain in life. But the love lasts, and the friendships last. The memories, like the brightest of the leaves of October, blow across the yard, and through my mind.
And my eyes are full, and born each time, of their beauty.