Autumn has been my favorite time of year for as long as I can remember.  It seems like when I was little Dallas had more (actual) four seasons.  Now it feels like it goes from nine months of unrelenting pizza oven heat to three months of slightly below freezing cold mixed with bitter winds and, even more dreaded, ice.  This year we got a torrential downpouring of rain for almost the entire month of October.  Oddly, I didn’t mind it.  The prospect of flooding was concerning, particularly for folks who live farther south in Texas, but for me that was tempered with the hope of no winter wildfires which seem to rage worse every year people deny human culpability in climate change.  I love all of nature but the woods have always spoken to me the most.  While Dallas, Texas is not the Deep South, it does remain wooded and, blessedly, hidden pockets still exist untouched.  We took our wolfies for a walk in the woods by us and watching them was such a joy.  Wolves have a smell about 100 times greater than humans.  I told my husband and my child I could only imagine what all they were experiencing.  Our little girl experienced her first smell of a skunk and shrieked.  I explained to her that skunk had made its way through probably over a week ago, as its odor had mostly faded away.  Feeling the soft earth underneath my feet and listening to the sounds of the water rolling its way down the limestone in the creek was like a balm to my soul.  Sunlight dappled through the trees and it truly felt as if we were the only ones in the world.  From our little path nothing was to be seen or heard except Mother Nature.  Because of all the rain the trees have been particularly glorious … some only just now starting to turn.  Usually by this time they’ve already been blown off, quickly going from green to brown.  This month we have enjoyed a rich palette of bright yellows, deep oranges, and striking reds.  The best part is they have been kind enough to hang around.  The Austrian poet Georg Trakl once said, “I drank the silence of God from a spring in the woods.”  It may be my favorite quote of all time.  My heart always longs to go for a walk in the woods.