FALL MEANS IT'S TIME TO COME IN FROM THE COLD

Nature hung out all her colored garlands this year. The Virginia Creeper hung red scallops along fence rows, back to which was the scarlet sumac and then the whole rainbow of multi-colored sweet and sour gums, red and yellow leaved maples, russet of oaks, gold of hickory and paw paws. Interspersed at proper intervals were pines and cedars lending just the right contrast.

The most beautiful ride for me was through St. Joe State Park in St. Francois County. I think it outdid Trail of Tears State Park this year.

It seems fitting that year's ending should be celebrated with this great glory of color. It is as if triple exclamation marks denote the ending of a season, and, like a rainbow, promise this isn't the ending, just a rest period.

I hate to see the varieties of Wandering Jews freeze and the impatiens, but there is no inside house room for all of them. I bring inside snippets of them, as one would coddle a nest egg for next spring and manage to find room for an arrowhead philodendron and a couple of begonia plants.

I save seed from the Globe Amaranth but let the other annuals go. They're nearly all hybrids and wouldn't come back the same next year anyway.

November creeps into the house in subtle ways. There'll be a golden leaf on the green carpet tracked in unknowingly. A ladybug will be found on the inside window frame. Somehow she made it in around the supposedly tight fitting windows. I let her be, knowing she'll soon be out of sight again into some crevice. What does she exist on in the wintertime? Cold air seeps in at the base of doors and the purr of the furnace is as welcome as that of a contented cat.

Perhaps only Midwesterners experience the subtle changes (sometimes not so subtle) from indoor living to outdoor living and then indoor living again all in a year's time. Being a native Midwesterner I think it is the only way to go. Comes a beautiful fall day and we hear folks say, "I could take this the year `round," but they're short thinkers, forgetting the color of the spring tulips and the sweet songs of summertime birds.

I empty and bring in the hanging pots that have seemingly held thousands of petunias this summer, empty and bring in the wren houses. Those suspended from the porch eaves I clean but leave hanging. In the middle of some ice cold night I like to think something has sought shelter there. Maybe a woolly worm, beetle or even a meadow mouse.

Subtle and gradual changes take place in the kitchen too. The black iron soup kettle that gradually got pushed to the rear of the cabinet works its way to the front and finally to the kitchen stove where it remains all winter. Nutritionists have re-discovered the soup cooked in an iron kettle is the best for us. Even my great, great grandmother knew that. The iron pots are heavy but the infinitesimal bits of iron we get from them over the soup-cooking winter helps something. I suppose our blood. I like to think it helps keep my shoulders from drooping and a "stiff upper lip."

I have a winter supply of notebooks and pens, books too. I have saved magazines for years and any day I can go downstairs and pull out an issue of Women's Day, Farm Journal, Saturday Evening Post etc. from the 40s and re-enjoy them. It is almost as if I've just discovered the joy of magazines, for magazines in those years were "meaty," not mostly ads and glitz as they are today.

Last week I went down and pulled out at random a magazine which happened to be the February 1961 issue of Progressive Farmer. I felt that I had struck gold for it was their Diamond Jubilee issue.

It had some striking passages from their earlier issues such as: 1893-What the last Congress didn't do would fill books of 500 pages each. 1887-Among the bills introduced in the Senate today was the much-discussed anti-football bill. 1895-the people want at least four months' free schools for both races annually. 1896-Ben Montgomery killed a hog Tuesday which weighed 460 pounds and sold it for $23. 1900-To support the President and his official family of clerks, etc., costs $22 an hour.

REJOICE!