By Sarah Floyd

Fall is my favorite time of year.  My little crock pot comes out from where it’s been hiding in the bottom of a cupboard.  I think about the first thing I’ll make in it.  This year it was a coffee pot roast with carrots, onions and potatoes.  Good old fashioned comfort food, the type that fills you completely and warms you from the very inside of your belly.

For me, fall really starts after our first hard frost.  A frost so hard it makes every thing look as though it’s been dusted with powdered sugar.  On these mornings, the air is so still and quiet;  I can hear a leaf landing on the gravel in my driveway.  The deer standing in the valley below my house make huge white clouds from exhaling their breath.

My dad always called this “Indian Summer”.  He said it was the sunny days after the first frost of the fall. These autumn days are beautiful.  Bright sunshine and cool, crisp, temps that make a person put on an extra shirt and a cap when completing those fall chores.  The bright sun shining onto the Big Leaf Maple trees seems to make them glow with the golden colors of fall.

Enjoy the indian summer in your part of the world.  Break out that crock pot and prepare a yummy, heartwarming slow cooked supper.