We’ve had a magnificent fall, mostly warm and dry with a couple of rainstorms to cleanse the air and rehydrate the soil. The rain made it necessary to wash your car if you, like my wife and I, live on a gravel road. We felt a twinge of remorse as we watched the township’s precious gravel go down the drain.

In our neck of the woods, we’re thankful for every snow-free day in November. It means one less day of winter and one day closer to spring. Before long, our planet will round a curve in space and our local star will begin its northward trek. We must tell ourselves such things as we plunge toward the long cold.

We recently received a small smattering of snow. It soon melted, enabling us to resume the illusion that our winters really aren’t all that bad. But the mini blizzard was a shot across the bow, a warning of what might be in store.

Fall harvest is done. It was exceptionally balmy on the day when my cousin’s ginormous combine cut the 40 acres of soybeans south of our house. I was determined to savor this autumnal blessing of summerlike weather, so I climbed onto my John Deere 3010 loader tractor and drove around the perimeter of the field. I told myself that I was looking for stones, but that was a fib. It was a joyride.

I glanced northward as I putted along on the south headland. Across the field I could see our barn and its stubby silo and our farmhouse. I thought about all the times I’ve taken in that view. I also thought of Grandpa Nelson, who owned this farm before we did and built our house and moved the barn onto the place. I wonder if he, like me, would pause out in the field and gaze back at the farmstead. I wonder if Grandpa felt a deep sense of gratitude because he, like me, had a loving wife who made that farmhouse a home.

In some ways, I’m living Grandpa’s life. He, like me, had a smallish old tractor — his was a Farmall “C” — to putter around with and a few head of cattle to tend. Although I must point out that our multihued Jersey steers are much prettier than Grandpa’s monochrome Angus cows.

Hanging in our living room is an aerial photo of our farm that was taken in the autumn of 1974. I know the year precisely because that was the last fall when Dad and I and our neighbor Al Warnes filled Grandpa’s silo. Grandpa had asked us to drop a wagonload of silage near the cattle yard. That silage pile is still there in the photo, waiting for Grandpa to carry it, bushel basket by bushel basket, to his patient cows.

Our farmstead hasn’t changed much since then. The silage pile is long gone, and we tore down the old garage and the ramshackle wooden corn crib some years ago.

But the granary is still there and so is the chicken coop, both looking mostly the same except for their new roofs. The old privy still squats in the same spot, although it’s now pretty much just a pile of moldering lumber.

Later during the autumn when that photo was taken, Dad and I began to plow some rented land located east of our farm. We had just gotten a good start on the project when Grandpa drove onto the headland with his tractor and two-bottom plow. He didn’t stop to ask if we wanted help; he simply lined up on the furrow, dropped his plow into the ground and joined our fall tillage ritual.

It occurred to me in that moment that three generations — grandfather, father, son — had all stepped into the harness and were pulling toward a common goal. It was also an alphabetical trifecta as Dad was driving our John Deere “A” while I was piloting our John Deere “B” and Grandpa was on his trusty old “C.”

As a kid, I often gazed at the autumn twilight from the west door of my parents’ dairy barn and tried to imagine what the future might hold. Behind me, our Holsteins stood in their stanchions, placidly chewing their cud. In front of me, a V-shaped flock of geese honked vociferously as they chased the sun southward. Which animal allegory would apply to me?

The first one, it turned out. Happy is the man who wants what he has. I’m happy for all the blessings — family, friends, a cozy little home — that my wife and I have been given.