Fall Decorating Ideas

My more stylish neighbors have been working on their fall landscaping. So far I've counted about fifteen pumpkin-and-hay decorating schemes. One neighbor has at least twelve pumpkins piled up alongside her walkway. I wonder how long it will be before the squirrels turn the display into the food fight scene from "Animal House." I give it a week. As for me, I have a big basket of mums plunked down on the front steps. I didn't put it there; a friend did. I think I'm supposed to water it from time to time. Which is more than I've done for the lawn in about eight weeks. I gave up on the lawn a long time ago. It's riddled with creeping charlie and blasted buckthorn shoots, so what's the point? I keep it clipped, but that's about it. Still with the bite of fall in the air I start getting ideas. Wouldn't it be nice, I find myself musing, to come home to one of those glowing fall displays? You know, the ones on the cover of Better Homes and Gardens. Flaming foliage and golden yellow flowers. Some dark grey rocks for contrast. No cute scarecrows, I don't do scarecrows. A headless horseman I wouldn't mind. Literary reference, you know. Helps educate the local schoolchildren. All right, I want to know: does anybody out there really have a yard like Better Homes and Gardens? And if so do you do anything else with your life? Or does it take up every moment? Because I'm starting to think landscaping must be either a profession or an obsession, or maybe both.