Fabulous fall, fire and fellowship

For the past several years, it’s been my tradition to dedicate the first column of the fall season to senior fall prevention. This year, I’ll spare you the terrifying fall statistics, but I will use this opportunity to remind you how devastating falls are to seniors’ quality of life. May I suggest you call the Visiting Angels office at 478-971-1606 for a free “Fall Prevention” brochure and/or a free in-home fall prevention assessment? If it prevented only one fall, it would be the best call you ever made!

Now, on to fall. I hope your first real “fall-feeling” weekend was as enjoyable as ours. Saturday morning, we awakened to delightful temperatures and drove to Warner Robins for my grandson, Luke’s, football game. I’ll bet he had the biggest cheering squad of any player there with two sets of grandparents, two sets of aunts and uncles and I don’t know how many cousins. They won their game, so we all decided to have an impromptu lunch gathering at Luke’s house with Georgia Bob’s BBQ. It was a Fabulous Fall Fellowship!

While we were there, my six-year-old granddaughter, Ellie, asked her parents if she could come to the farm with us and stay overnight. Her parents said, “Yes,” and so did we; she is such a delight! No need to go get her overnight clothes because my wife keeps a spare set at the farm for just such an occasion!

Sunday morning, we awoke to delightful fall temperatures in the high 50s, as did you, and that was all I needed to put a load of firewood in the Kubota side by side and bring it up to the back deck to fill the firewood rack and build our first fire of fall. As soon as I got the blaze going, I went out the front door, stuck my nose in the air and breathed in that first magical breath of fall smoke from the fireplace … there’s nothing like it!

Bess put a pot of pumpkin spice on the stove to fill the house with its aroma, and I made a big pot of porridge (which is what we call oatmeal in our house because everyone knows that porridge is better than plain old oatmeal, right?!).

Then, while we were enjoying our porridge, so magically spiced up with goodies as only my wife can do, and topped with real butter and Pennsylvania Amish-Country Maple syrup, Ellie asked me if I would take her to church. Well, I would ask you, what grandpa could resist an invitation like that for a Pop-Pop/Granddaughter church date? Not me, that’s for sure. So Nanny (Bess) got out Ellie’s special pink dress that we keep on hand for such special occasions as this, and we were ready to go. If you’re reading this in the paper, go to www.facebook.com/VisitingAngelsofCentralGA/ to see the pictures. If you’re on Facebook, you’ve already seen them. While we were sitting in church together, Ellie leaned over and put her head on my shoulder and melted my heart like it was warm butter!

Back home after church, Bess still had that pumpkin spice potpourri going and was in the process of making a big pot roast with our own grass-fed beef short ribs. When Ellie’s parents and sisters came to get her a couple hours later, her dad, David, and I took some fresh corn and a salt lick to the deer stand to insure a good venison harvest later on in the fall. I’ll save that for another column!

After dinner around the big farm table, I was reminiscing with Bess about how well I remember Sunday afternoon dinners around Grandmom Milby’s dining room table!

Our kids and grandkids are growing up in a far different world than we did. Anything we can do to build wonderful, stable, loving family experiences like we did this weekend with Ellie is a worthwhile investment. Do it now and enjoy some Fabulous Fall Fire and Fellowship in the process.

Thanks for reading All About Seniors … see you next week!

PS … Don’t forget the “Fall Prevention” brochure and inspection!

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