Under the Wire

Fall is a wonderful time of the year. Trees turn wonderful colors, night begin to become longer and cooler, days are shortened a few seconds every day and best of all the frosts that accompany fall kill flies, mosquitoes and weeds. Fall also is very expensive.

Folks with kids in school get hammered with fees for everything from lockers to cheerleading uniforms. For me personally, that part of fall is long behind me but I hear getting them born is nothing compared to the cost of sending them off to the third grade. Then there’s the great send off to college. Doubt I need to elaborate on that for most of you. World Class expense. Again those days are long behind me but I do remember scrambling to scrap up the $75 tuition good old Colorado State required to let students attend one quarter of higher fun. Quarters were replaced with semester’s which I bet cost more than twice our old sessions.

The real expense of fall, however, is not tuition, fees, lawn rakes for the leaves or having the pool drained. No experience on that last one but do have a friend who complains about that every fall. Kind of hard to feel sorry for him.

Nope. The real expense of fall for me and I will bet many of you, is the coats. Fall requires lots of jean jackets, Carharts and sweatshirts, at least for me. Here’s why.

I get up every fall morning and anxiously await the sunrise. As soon as it arrives, I pull on a jacket from the closet and step outside into the morning chill. If I’m headed to the pickup to check cows in an hour or so I’m getting too hot. Take the coat off and throw it in the back seat. Don’t need it any more that day. The next morning, I repeat the process with another jacket hanging beside an empty hanger from yesterday. Today, a tractor takes me out to bale hay. Soon I shed that coat. The next day there are two empty hangers beside my choice from the closet. After about six days of scattering jackets and sweaters throughout barns, sheds, shop, tractor and pickup, I’m out of coats. Can’t go outside to get one. Too cold. Not totally sure I remember where most are anyway. Better stop by the farm store and pick up a couple new ones. Repeat this about three times every fall. Fall cost me lots of clothing dollars. If you, too, have this problem, give me a call. This past summer I found a dozen or so jackets scattered all over the ranch buildings and equipment. Can let you have a really good deal on some 44 long jean jackets and a hooded sweatshirt, price tag still attached.

Yep, fall can be the most expensive time of the year.