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I’m feeling a bit nostalgic about fall in the United States today. In Thailand, there IS no ‘fall.’ There is a ‘cool season,’ where the constant rain finally stops and temperatures drop to a low of 50 and highs in the mid 80s. It was late this year, but officially it’s from November 1st through mid-February.

It’s funny, the temperature is not that cold, but there is no heat in Thailand. The emphasis is rightly on the other 3/4 of the year where cooling is a necessity. 50 degrees with no heat seems cold, and I’m learning to dress in layers, I put the throw Brian got me on my bed, I’m using the water heating unit in the shower now at least a bit, and I heat up hot water to drink.

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Whitaker Point – Jeff Rose – AR.com

In Arkansas, the fall was a busy time for us. Our place was a little more than 8 acres of pretty heavy woods on top of a ridge line. Because the summers were hot and dry, the leaves started falling early. I spent days and days raking and blowing leaves, then grinding them up to create mulch for my planters all around the house, and then redistributing the mulch, packing it down to try to protect our plants for the coming winter.

We had a small square foot garden where I grew a lot of veggies for us. In the fall was the time I would finally harvest the last of the veggies, do a final weeding of the special soil I created combining vermiculite, peat moss, and as many different kinds of mulch – including my mulched leaves – as I could to use in place of regular soil. This combination was put in 4’x4′ boxes we made and put on welded frameworks that made the boxes come to about my chest level. We filled the boxes with the soil alternative up to the top to prepare for spring planting, and then covered the boxes with tarps with a tall thing in the center of each one so that ice and snow would drain off. This way of planting kept me from having to bend over double or get down on my hands and knees to tend my plants. We made an irrigation system for the 6 boxes we had and surrounded the whole thing with fencing to keep critters out.

Fall was time to make sure our generator was working well and would come on reliably in the winter when we lost power and needed it. We had a well house where we had piping for both public (city) water and well water. We used well water for things on the outside. We had a propane powered heater in the well house to keep things from freezing up and we lit that in preparation for the winter. We also unhooked the irrigation system we used to water all the plants around the house, drained the LONG hose system we created, and put faucet covers on all the outside faucets.

We mowed one last time and I weed whacked and pruned carefully so that it would look like someone cared. We cut back trees in the driveway on both sides that we thought might fall into the driveway with a winter storm. No matter how much we did, though, it wasn’t enough, and we would have to chain saw our way down our 650 foot driveway to the street below.

We would make sure we had firewood ready to be lit and stored where we could get to it easily. We lit fires in the fireplace more because we loved being able to sit on the hearth and warm our backs, plus see the glow of the fire, rather than really NEEDING the fire for heat, but we had peace of mind having it.

One winter we had no public water and no electricity for 14 days. This made us get really serious about preparing for the winter up there!

All this preparation needed was one of the reasons we decided it was finally too much for us and that we should move to Thailand to retire. We have some fond memories of the fall season, though, in Arkansas when the heat of the summer had finally eased off. We could open doors, air out the house, turn off the a/c, and enjoy spending lots of time outside in the yard, on the screened back porch, on the deck with our pets, and more.

Like the song that says, “Sorry, not sorry,” – I ‘miss it, but don’t miss it.’