As we prepare for probably the biggest feast of the year, Thanksgiving, I'm feeling a little reminiscent about the fall.

Autumn is my favorite time of the year. It didn't used to be, but the older I get the more I like it.September starts off hot, but mellows into a nice warm colorful season of reds, golds, greens and browns. It's also when festivals seem to pop up every weekend, taking the place of county fairs.This fall, there were three that come to mind that I find particularly creative - Weissport's Redneck Festival, the Fiber Fest near Lehighton and the Bowmanstown Pepper Festival.Just looking at the Facebook page for the Redneck Festival lightens your mood and makes you laugh. The top photograph is the festival's banner, purposefully I add, made from a clothes line and white T-shirts of different sizes and long john underwear pinned to it with clothes pins. Each piece had a letter spelling "Redneck Festival."The festival took place Labor Day weekend and had an entertainment lineup that included "Banned from the Ranch," and "Country Rhythm Band."Kudos to a group of people who thought outside the box and decided to celebrate just because it's fun to have something to celebrate.As September came to a close, fiber artisans gathered for the second annual Fiber Fest at the Big Creek Grange near Lehighton. True, my first thought when I heard the festival was about fiber was bran flakes and Metamucil. Hey, to each his own. Who am I to judge if someone wants to celebrate that?As it turns out, the fiber being celebrated was actually the ability to make beautiful and whimsical items from strands of fiber - wool, cotton, llama and silk. Some of the artisans wove fabric just like it had been done long ago, spun wool onto a spindle, crocheted and knitted. These are crafts that too few still know how to do. One woman had hand-dyed silk scarves, no two alike. And another had sweet little gnomes, which I adored so much I bought one for my sister and one for myself.And then there was the Bowmanstown Pepper Festival, held for the first time this year.I first saw an advertisement for it along Route 248, and wondered, "Pepper? What kind? Sweet bell peppers? Maybe stuffed peppers? Or the hot ones like jalapeño and ghost peppers? It was the latter.Like its Facebook page said, it was about "All things hot, hot, hot. Spicy food and lively spirits."The festival took place at the Bowmanstown Volunteer Fire Department, and included a Chili Cook-Off and vendors selling peppers, salsa, sauces, dips and jelly. Not my cup of tea, but great for those who like their food spicy.As October came to a close, ghost stories came out of the woodwork like the specters themselves. And young and old enjoyed pretending to be someone else for a night, a party or a trick-or-treating adventure.A ghost story submitted by a reader gave me a new perspective. The old saying, "You'll wake the dead" might actually be true. She shared how her family suffered from a haunting in their house. Furniture was flung around the room; footsteps stomped up the cellar stairs. And she sought help hoping for an exorcism. Finding only a dead end, she turned to a psychic who told her the man who was frightening them was mad, because the family was fighting all of the time. He liked when they read the Bible together, which they had turned to for protection. Who knew we could disturb their peace?