By the time you read this, summer has officially ended and my favorite season of the year has officially arrived. I’ve always loved the fall time of the year, so much that I always devote a September column to it. I can’t help myself.

Just yesterday I hunted up two bags of “fall” stuff in the storage shed and brought them into the back part of the house.

To avoid getting all the dust from the bags into the main part of the house, I left the bags there and carried armload after armload of pumpkins and scarecrows into the living and dining rooms. What fun I had arranging the scarecrows and various sizes of pumpkins around the rooms, poking the stakes of some of the scarecrows into flower pots.

I even hung some scarecrows in the front entryway, but I resisted decorating the front porch. From past experiences I know that the visiting deer pull scarecrows from flower pots, and pull artificial flowers apart spreading petals all over the yard. Real pumpkins are eaten up, seeds and all.

Pumpkins and scarecrows are part of the reason that I love fall, but that’s not all. Consider the following:

• The daytime temperatures (at least at the beginning of fall) are “just right” — not too hot or too cold — but just the right temperature to get out and do things.

• I have never been able to resist fall leaves and can spend lots of time finding “just the right leaves.” It has already frosted so they will be changing colors shortly.

• The crabapple tree just outside of the dining room window is full of tiny crabapples that have turned red, and a bunch of tiny yellow canary-like birds spend fall days eating them.

• Neighboring fall pastures are filled with cattle just home from summer pasture, a favorite sight of mine this time of the year.

• Pickup trucks and semi trucks pass by Pipi’s Pasture, pulling trailers filled with hay bales of all sizes.

• Although I don’t have a garden at this time, I remember how enjoyable it is to harvest fall vegetables such as pumpkins, both Jack-Be-Little and big varieties; banana squash; tomatoes; and, some years, melons.

• The lawns have been mowed, for perhaps the last time, and the backyard hose has been disconnected from the house.

A couple of things are a little different than usual this fall. First of all, the deer have spent a lot of time eating leaves off the lilac bushes — not that it’s unusual or deer to eat lilac leaves — but this year they have eaten every single leaf off the tiny bushes in the backyard. They have eaten the leaves off the taller bushes, too, so that the only leaves left are at the very top.

Also, a couple of days ago I noticed an insect that isn’t a usual habitant around Pipi’s Pasture. When I was getting ready to open the car door, I spotted an odd shape on the ground.

Then I noticed the big eyes peering at me and then the stick legs. It was a praying mantis, and I’ve only seen one before this.

I left him alone as I understand that the mantis eats spiders and other insects.

It’s fall, and I’m going to enjoy every minute of it.