xanthophyll, xylophory

Ok, I had to resort to googling "words that begin with x" for this one. Out of all the strange and scientific sounding x words, I liked these two best:

xanthophyll - substance causing yellow color of autumn leaves
xylophory - wood-carrying.

These two words remind me of autumn, my most favorite season of all. I love almost everything about autumn, except for the fact that our university town is overwhelmed all at once with 42 thousand students and their parents. But I am on the lookout for xanthophyll because I love the season of turning leaves. I love the morning coolness that starts happening this time of year. I look forward to whole days of cool air and blue skies. I look forward to being xylophoric, carrying the ricks of wood from where the xylopolist (person who sells wood) has dumped it, to our woodpile from where we will retrieve it when it gets cold and snowy and we make fires in the woodstove. As husband and I always say, "Wood warms twice." Once when you cut it or carry it and pile it up, and once when you burn it. Husband picks the xylopolist very carefully each year. He wants to make sure we get good, dry hardwood. I love putting on my boots and tromping out through the snow to get wood for the fire because I know, after the blast of freezing cold air, I can come in and sit by the intense warmth of the woodstove. It is a comforting, self-reliant feeling to be a little bit off the electric grid. We survived a power outage of four days last winter, hanging out in our down coats and sheepskin house slippers, keeping a fire going in the woodstove, and making jiffy pop over our camp stove to have with a movie on the portable dvd player when it got too dark to read. As a builder, husband has worked outside most of his life and dreads Fall as the harbinger of winter. But I love it and relish it for the amazingly beautiful season it us unto itself.