I love living in a place where we have seasons. For me, the change of season isn’t the month on the calendar, it’s the feelings it gives me – and the memories. A whiff of wood smoke sends me right back to my cabin in Quebec, and even though we have Canada geese living here year round in Rhode Island, the sound of a skein flying overhead reminds me of when I used to look up at them and wonder where they were going to spend the winter.

Here are a few things that for me say “it’s fall.”

The last garden tomatoes ripening on the windowsill

What's left of the monarch butterfly chrysalis

Weird-looking gourds

One last flamboyant bunch of zinnias

Many of my gardening friends are missing summer already. I am not. Once the garden chores are done and the houseplants are settled back inside, it seems to me that we (the garden included) can take our natural and well-deserved rest.

Enjoy your autumn, wherever you are.