As I sit down in the yard and begin to relax, the bright fall colors first catch my eye. This year’s autumn produced a particularly breathtaking color palette. I like to imagine that when nobody was around, somebody took a traffic light, shook it really hard until all the colors got mixed up, and then spilled it all over the treetops and the ground. This floor of foliage seems to muffle every sound a little bit, creating an atmosphere of serenity. Though, this magic will only last so long as I’m sure they’ll all be raked up soon. An adult might see these leaves as a burden or as nothing but a time-consuming chore, but you would have to be insane not to take at least a second to simply take in the autumn environment they create. And, all children know that each leaf is not merely a leaf but instead a piece in the construction of a Leaf Pile—the ultimate crunchy cushion that lets you jump to your heart's content.

I take a deep breath of fresh air. It’s becoming the time of year again when the air outside is significantly colder than the air inside. I like to believe that when nobody’s around, someone sneaks out and turns some big thermostat somewhere down a couple of degrees each night to get us ready for the great cold blasts and snow coverings of winter soon to come. The chilly breath I took shocked my lungs as they inflated. It took a couple of breaths to get used to the temperature, but my body calibrated quickly.

As I sit for a little while longer my mind moves on from such in-your-face features of nature and I start looking closer. About 200 feet away I see three deer munching on whatever plants they can still find this time of year. I hear starlings flutter between branches up above my head. To my right, I see two squirrels scurry up a tree so quickly you’d think there was a red-tailed hawk chasing after them. I’m surprised I even caught it. But, these squirrels weren't chasing their next meal or escaping prey; they were simply playing. I like to imagine that when nobody’s around, all the animals of the woods call and text each other to organize when to get together. They don’t tell us humans though, because they think it would be too embarrassing. I sit watching these critters and I try not to make a peep and scare them away.

It’s fun to imagine that the wonders of nature follow the same rules and use the same tools we use in our crazily hyper-connected human society. Why? Maybe it makes us feel better about the incomprehensible beauty in front of us. Sure, it can all be explained with chemistry and biology and astronomy, but maybe leaving the classroom and actually experiencing the natural majesty of our world spurs our minds into creating such magical fantasies. Or, maybe, it’s just fun to imagine a squirrel holding a cell phone.