PEA RIDGE — To me there is something impressive about the changing of the seasons. Although the calendar ends each year with Dec. 31, some time after the beginning of winter, to me the fall of the year is the season of completion.

To a farm boy, fall is the season of the harvest. I hope I never lose that sense of it. It is a time for weighing what the year has come to, taking stock of how the year has progressed, a time to contemplate and savor the results of the year’s labors.

Sometimes it is possible to be pleased with the rounding out of a good year. At other times one recognizes that the year is not as bountiful as hoped, and begins looking for a new opportunity to try again and to do better.

As one for whom the hot and humid weather of an Arkansas summer is oppressive, I have a sigh of relief when the cooler days of Autumn arrive. Even as the mornings begin to take on a nippy chill, I usually persist in wearing my short-sleeved shirts, enjoying the fresh feel in the air; even relishing a shiver now and then.

Admittedly Autumn brings in some drab and dreary days, but usually the season is marked by transformation and color, with a crisp feel in the air, and a satisfying splash of color hues replacing the green of the growing seasons. Through the years, I have enjoyed getting together groups of people who like to see fall scenery as the leaves turn to yellows, browns, reds, goldensand all shades in between.

We would take driving tours to places where we knew the woods would be taking on Autumn’s glow. I enjoy the times of coming upon scenes which drew us to stop awhile and just look, taking in the scene, being moved by something grand. Nothing matches the hand of the Almighty in painting the mountains and hills in the fall of the year.

Our area is not nearly so rural as it was a few short years ago. The settlers who formed our town of Pea Ridge some 160 years ago came to work the land, to carve out farms for crops and livestock. Today, we have become much more urban, more reliant on employment in industry, retailing and service trades, less connected to the land, less aware of our reliance on the land, more accustomed to buying foods shippedin from distant states, no longer relying on what we grow in our fields and gardens. Even the livestock and poultry which we produce in abundance are routed through processing “factories.”

It always seems to me that we are a sounder group of human beings when we keep in mind that we draw our resources for living ultimately from the land. This week Nancy and I have been watching a TV series on our nation’s National Parks, many of which we have never visited. Taking in some of the great scenes, such as the Grand Canyon, reawakens our sense of awe and appreciation for things in creation that have not been formed by human doings, but which are awesomely beautiful, and which have an amazing quieting and healing effect on us inwardly.

The fall of the year is always to me a strong reminder of the variety of beautiful scenes all around us, on the streets of our town, in our lawns and gardens, in the hills and valleys we pass through on the way to work or to do business, in our fields, along our country roads, by the sides of our creeks and rivers and lakes. We don’t really have to go far to discover scenes rivaling those of the more famous places.

Autumn in the 1940s when I was a boy was a time to see and to take part in picking the corn crop, running the binder in our crop of oats, forming the bundles into shocks, watching the grain dry in readiness for threshing or grinding. We didn’t have a thresher near at hand; we usually ground the oats by holding the heads of the bundles in the hammer mill, then tossing the remaining straw aside. Autumn saw the haying season coming to a close.

In a good year, the barn would be full of hay for winter, with extra haystacks at the edges of the fields, the crib full of corn, and oats stored away for the horses.

In the once-green cornfields, the broken cornstalks would be dry and brown, and pumpkins would be ripening among them. Some of the garden would have become a turnip patch, jars of canned green beans would line the shelves in the cellar, crates of potatoes would be stashed away, bundles of drying onions would be hanging from the walls of the shed.

Even in the hard times, life was good.

Contact Jerry Nichols by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.

News, Pages 5 on 10/07/2009