Top Ten Ways to Know Fall Has Arrived in Texas | by Linda Brendle

All of us who live in the South have heard some version of this comment from our friends of a more northern persuasion:

“I couldn’t live down here. I’d miss the change of seasons too much.”

It’s true that we don’t always have the gradual Spring thaw with the first green sprigs peeking timidly through the muddy remnants of the last snow. Instead we go to bed one March night with nothing but bare branches in the yard and wake up with a riot of white blossoms on every pear tree. And we don’t have a month or two to go through a slow transition from long johns to lightweight jackets to summer wear. Instead we go directly from boots and sweaters to shorts and sandals. But we usually get a day or two of beautiful weather when we can open the windows and air out the house before we shut ourselves in for the long, hot summer.