We are passing through the time of the harvest moon and the hunter's moon, when the countryside is a Joseph's coat of many colors. How casually Nature's colors seem to be flung together, and how elegant the result. For children and some adults who still consider themselves young, flurrying leaves is an invitation to plunge into a soft, unruly mattress of leaves, tunnel through leaf mounds and hurl leaves into the air. There is that clear autumn sky and, at night, a harvest moon that becomes a hunter's moon.

In September the Harvest Moon comes at the peak of the harvest, when farmers could work at night by the light of the moon. With modern day machinery that has headlights the harvest moon doesn't hold the importance for man that it once did.

The Hunter's Moon is the first full moon after the Harvest Moon, the full moon nearest the Autumnal equinox, and gets its name from hunters of long ago who tracked and killed their prey by autumn moonlight, for stockpiling food for the winter ahead. With the leaves falling and deer fattening it was time to hunt. Since the fields had been reaped, hunters could walk or ride over the stubble and could easily see the deer which had come out to glean and could be killed for a Thanksgiving feast after the harvest.

We are now into November, and time to celebrate that most American holiday, Thanksgiving. I can hardly think of it today, without recalling the busy week spent in preparing for it, when I was a child, as full of good memories as the day itself. In my childhood, a turkey or chicken was not bought at the grocery ready for the oven or skillet; they were killed, plucked and dressed at home. The season's work, as far as the land was concerned, was expected to be done before Thanksgiving, and indoors, fall cleaning, with all that entailed, gotten well out of the way. The night before the big day was especially busy. The meat dishes being ready, it was time for the baking of pies and cakes. This task was given over to the aunts and grandchildren. The grandparents retired to the hearthside and could be heard reminiscing about other Thanksgivings in their past.

All is ready. The large family along with friends and neighbors gather to share a day of giving thanks, feasting and remembering those who had gone from our view, but not from our hearts and memory.

So, Thanksgiving, the dividing line between summer and winter came to a close. The brilliant patchwork of autumn is now edged with the knowledge of winter ahead. We now as then hold close the essence of these golden months and watch our old friends, the Canada geese, tracking through the sky, flying from farm to farm to feed. When those great birds once again fill the sky and land in the fields, honking and gabbling, we cannot deny that winter, and the Full Cold Moon, or sometimes known as the Moon before Yule, is close at hand.

Happy Thanksgiving.