There’s just something magical about fall, at least in the middle and northern United States. The changing of the seasons, the vivid colors of the falling leaves, the crisp chill of the morning air replacing the heat and humidity of summer.

But the best part of fall, now that we reflect on it, is the impending death of all those living things we waited for so eagerly in the spring for some reason. Perhaps several months of brutal winter had dulled our memories of the misery of spring and summer.

In the garden as the frost comes, there will be no more tomatoes and watermelons. But there will also be no more weeds, and that seems like more than a fair trade. And frankly, we don’t care if we never see another zucchini again.

With the lawn, the end is in sight. Not forever, oh Lord, will the heavy burden of mowing weigh down our weekly schedule. All that pestiferous grass (did someone PLANT that?) will die. Even so, come quickly, sweet frost.

And finally, most gloriously, we can say goodbye to all those bugs, the ones that ate our garden plants, crawled into our houses through any crack they could find, splatted on our windshields, and bit us enthusiastically. With equal enthusiasm, we’ll enjoy the thought of them dying miserable deaths in the biting cold. Now there’s a bite we can appreciate.

The end is in sight. It’s the sort of satisfaction we would have felt after Noah’s flood if we had been God. (Humanity can be grateful we aren’t God. In this election year, we’d be certainly regretting our rash promise not to flood the world again and trying to find a loophole.)

As fall approaches, the Sacred Cow has also reached the end of another year. If you’re hoping the winter kills us off, just remember that like the bugs, we’ll be back.

And after a few months, you’ll probably even be looking forward to it.