Welcome to autumn in Missouri

What are you wearing today? One day I wear my stay-at-home shorts, the next day I dig out my corduroy slacks and a sweatshirt. I go to church wearing a suit and am rather chilly. When I leave the building about two hours later I am dressed too warmly. (Don't misunderstand. Our church doesn't last two hours, but we also attend Sunday school.) One day we have the air conditioner running in the house and that night we turn the new heat pump on to heat. (We actually haven't been running the air conditioner very much since we had the odor of a dead varmint in the house.)

FYI the dead varmint was not a little mouse or even a mouse family. It was a possum, and he breathed his last under our house. He evidently got in while the men were installing the new heat pump. After Lester got stronger after his surgery, he fastened the opening under the house that the men had used in their work. It appears that by doing so he shut the possum inside and eventually the poor thing died, right under our dining room table, below the floor. Bless his heart, our son Michael who by now has probably regretted that he retired early to come back here to live, retrieved the problem. That meant he had to crawl on his tummy the length of the house, gather the dearly departed remains in a plastic bag, and squirm back out again. Running the air conditioner stirred up the problem so we aren't using it often during this period.) But there are some really great things about this season in spite of the uncertainties of the temperature. Even in this extremely dry year, there are still abundant yellow blooms along the roads as the Spanish Blossoms bloom wherever the mowers haven't done their work in the last month. These are some of my favorite flowers and I always look forward to their coming each year. I do this even knowing that it heralds the end of outdoor flowers.

Another benefit is the beauty of the daytime hours. Lunches out on the deck, walks among the Spanish blossoms without a wrap or without getting too warm, blue skies with white clouds all add to the joys of the season.

However this year we would be happy to forgo the blue skies and white clouds for heavy clouds loaded with rain. The colorful leaves could hang damply and we will not object.

One thing I don't like about this season is having to reset all the clocks.

Spring forward and fall back is easy to remember. But in the fall that means we have to go all around the face of the clock to get back to the new hour.

This is particularly hard on the clock on our oven that has to be set a minute at a time by moving the oven timer control.

I will welcome a few days of more light in the morning as Marilyn meets the bus at 7 a.m., but on the reverse side it begins to get dark soon after she gets off the bus in the afternoon.

The cooler weather does open up more variety in our menu. Two of my favorite meals, potato soup and corn bread and navy beans and cornbread don't sound too appealing in 90-degree weather. But on a cool early dark evening they can be welcome entrees on the dining room table.

One thing we won't be serving this year or any year is stewed possum.