This is my favorite time of year — with cooler weather, beautiful colors, fun things to do outside (and the smell of apple cider).

And, yes, heading to the pumpkin patch is one of our family’s favorite fall outings.

Every year since our son Al was just toddling we’ve made the trip to the “punkin” patch. Al, my husband and I walk the rows and rows of pumpkins, with Dad in charge of the wheelbarrow and the heavy lifting.

Al would do his best to lift big orange orbs by himself, but was just too small, and would eventually settle for helping me pick out just the right one, or two. O.K., seven or eight!

Last year, he pushed the wheelbarrow until it was too heavy and then let Dad take over so he could focus on picking out pumpkins for decorating his own room. I’m proud to say he gets that idea from me. I love decorating with them all around the house.

But this year, now that Al is now over five feet tall, he may be assigned full-time wheelbarrow duty. Once the pumpkins have been rigorously inspected and hand-picked — and passed to Dad for loading — we will walk over to visit the animals: goats, rabbits, and chickens.

Early on, Al was afraid to get too close to the fence. He’d stand back and talk to the animals and give them names. Within a couple of years we had to hold him back to keep him from climbing the fence to “go see” the goats. These days he’s much more interested in learning about the different animals, feeding them when given the opportunity, and “making sure they are O.K.”

After goat time, we’ll head over for a few turns down the big slide and a climb on the hay bales, grab a snack, and wait for our turn on the hayride. This consists of a big trailer with several bales of hay to sit on, pulled by a big tractor. This has always been Al’s favorite autumn pastime. I’m grateful I don’t have to worry so much anymore about him trying to jump off the moving trailer. (I guess it’s a boy thing.) But now I have to deal with his insisting on driving the tractor (also a boy thing).

We always enjoy being outside in the country — and taking some of it home: pumpkins, gourds and a few hay bales. (No, Al, we aren’t taking any goats home.) By the end of the afternoon, we’ve usually run into several old friends and made some new ones, taken lots of pictures, and packed the Suburban to the roof.

Then it’s nice to sip my warm apple cider in the cool fall evening, looking back on pictures from past years, and seeing how Al has grown.