It’s F-in Fall, Y’all

aka Pumpkin (Gourd for you academics) Spice Latte season

There’s a switch that flips in Kentucky sometime between late August and the first morning you see your breath.

It’s like somebody whispered “pumpkin spice” into the wind, and the whole state loses its mind.

Suddenly, every porch turns into a Hobby Lobby fever dream.

We got pumpkins, gourds, mums, bales of hay, and a scarecrow that looks like it’s one bad day from filing for unemployment.

It’s that magical time of year when the air smells like woodsmoke, football, and freshly lit Yankee candles.

I am not immune to this madness. Every year, I tell myself I’m not going to get sucked in.

I’m just going to grab some deer corn and mind my business.

Then I find myself at Lowe’s with a cart full of gourds that look like they were grown on Mars and a pumpkin so big it needed its own zip code, or better yet, at a local orchard where I pay eight times the going rate for a damn pumpkin.

But that’s the beauty of it. This is Kentucky. We do fall like nobody else.

You can drive through the knobs or along the river, and it looks like God took a paintbrush and just started showing off.

Orange, red, and gold colors you forget exist until October smacks you in the face with them.

We start making chili for no reason. We pull out flannel shirts even though it’s still eighty degrees by lunch.

Every bourbon tastes better. Even the air feels aged to perfection.

Now, listen, there are rules to follow in Kentucky fall.

• You cannot be drinking a pumpkin spice latte with fingerless gloves unless you’ve earned it.

• You’ve got to rake at least one pile of leaves the size of a Buick.

• You need to carve a jack-o-lantern that looks less like art and more like you performed surgery with a butter knife.

• And you better burn something, leaves, wood, calories, anything that produces smoke and makes you feel alive.

Every year I tell myself I’m going to simplify, to slow down, to “embrace the season.”

Then I blink and I’ve got ten pumpkins on the porch, a fake crow in the yard, and a candle called “Crisp Morning Air” burning like I’m trying to summon Martha Stewart’s ghost.

But truth be told, this season has always been good to me.

It’s when life feels slower, more precise, and just a little easier to love. The evenings stretch out.

The air sharpens. Friends seem closer.

You can sit around a fire and not say a word, and somehow it feels like church.

Kentucky in the fall reminds you that beauty doesn’t have to shout. It just sits there quietly a pile of pumpkins, a worn flannel, a bourbon neat and lets you notice.

So here’s to the season of decorative gourds, early sunsets, and the art of pretending you’re ready for winter. Pour a drink, light the fire, and look around. You’re in the prettiest state on God’s green earth.