SALT LAKE CITY — A KSL.com reader sent stunning drone footage of the changing leaves near Cascade Springs — swaths of red, mixed with green and seemingly no yellows in between.

For some, the changing leaves conjure a kind of cozy expectancy — fall is here, and before you know it we'll be roasting turkey and waxing our skis. My go-to icebreaker: "How about that avalanche danger?" will be applicable again, and I'll be able to eat soup without heat stroke.

For others, the rustle of a cold breeze through the aspens sends shivers down your spine. You haven't bought snow tires yet, pumpkin spice makes you queasy or you enjoy more than six hours of sunlight. You could like foliage on your trees, and feel like yellow leaves look a little like the mountain has a troubling skin condition.

I am probably in the latter camp — maybe because fall in Utah lasts around three days, or maybe because living in a basement changes the equation a little.

Stone fruit season, and the bliss you get from gleaning apricots off neighborhood trees, is over. The only evidence of plums is a dark slimy section of sidewalk down the road. I've been too carefree, enjoying the outdoors to get my dental checkup, and I know I'm going to pay for that when crunching into my first fall apple.

Already, insects are making their way into my rental home, through holes in screens and cracks in the foundations, looking for a place to call their own during the impending snowfall. Small wolf spiders tickle my bare feet in the bathroom, but the floor is so cold I don't notice.

On the bright side, I can put off fixing my car's A/C for the third year ... and the 3 million resident dogs will don their Carhartt vests to match their owner's beanies.

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If you give a mongoose a cookie

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