Well Hello Harvest Moon

Yesterday was the first day of fall and the the first Harvest Moon in 20 years. Neil Young sang a song about the Harvest Moon way back when. I knew it was time when my friend Kellie from MO posted on her Facebook wall that the morning smelled of damp oak trees and smokey chimneys in the Ozarks Mtns where she was working. My mind shot back to near Cherokee Pass Mo where I grew up hunting. Those early fall mornings with the thick fog rising off the pastures and the fireplace smoke curling up from the old cabins along the hollers.

The harvest moon from last night, I missed it rising from the horizon where it's at it's best.

 To me the fall season is the best one of the four. How can you beat apple cider, pumpkin pie, bonfires, ripe persimmons and Halloween? Hockey also starts up and this Blues fan is always glued to the radio or TV watching the coolest game in the world. And we can't forget the hunting season either. Our annual ADSH squirrel hunt is always the first weekend in Oct. It will be 33 years and counting for our gathering near Plato MO this year.

The last harvest moon I can remember I was bowhunting deer near Swan Lake NWR in MO. I had stopped by the refuge to film some big bucks one evening. The local farm boys where running combines all day and night trying to get the corn in on the refuge land. I came out of the marsh along Yellow Creek after dark had fallen and there across the moonlit cornfield was the harvest moon, perched perfectly on the horizon. The big lunar orb was so large it felt like I could reach out and touch it. I paused to take in what I was seeing, the combines running in the foreground against the moonlit timber in the background.

So what are your fall memories and fall traditions?