It just doesn’t feel like Halloween this year. Many of you know, The Bean and I love Halloween. I thrive during the spooky season and look forward to it all year. The Bean and I were talking, and this year just doesn’t feel like Halloween. As I look out my living room window, the trees are greener than orange, yellow, or red. The vibrant fall foliage is missing from the landscape. The temperatures are abnormally warm for this time of year, and this makes me sad. Okay, maybe not sad but definitely disappointed.
This also makes me wonder, will autumn go by the wayside as winter has? I remember the winters from when I was a kid. I remember waist-deep snow, bitter cold temperatures, icicles hanging from the roofline, sometimes touching the ground, and snowstorm after snowstorm. So maybe the snow was waist-deep because I was three feet high. Perhaps the icicles were due to poor gutter cleaning practices. Maybe the many snowstorms I remember weren’t that plentiful. However, winter seemed more winter-like than the winters we have now. So, I question whether the leaves will stop changing color. Will the crisp nip in the air cease to exist? Will we stop noting the passage of time with the turn of the seasons? Are we destined to live in a world without seasons? I have always said I never want to live in a part of the country that doesn’t experience the change of the seasons. Will the months just blend into one warm season after another? I hope not.
I am missing the colorful foliage, sweater weather, cold nights, chilly days, and that very autumn-y feeling I so love. Halloween should feel like chilly winds whispering through boughs of color-filled trees. It should look like nights filled with full moon illuminated skies, the autumnal constellations high in the night sky, and an eerie moon hanging against an almost bare tree line. Halloween should smell like wet, fallen leaves, frosted vegetation, and bonfires. It should not be summer-like temperatures, warm breezes, green leaves, and windows open sleeping weather. Sigh.
I know I shouldn’t complain. Soon the temperatures will drop to uncomfortable levels; the snow will fly, the ice will come, everything will look murky and grey. I will feel that uncomfortable feeling in my joints. The Bean and The Bibbed Wonder will soon be laughing at me and my weather-predicting arthritic toe. They will be dragging their legs like Quasimodo mocking my abnormally accurate forecast and saying things like, “Oy, it’s going to snow, I can feel it in my toe!” Eric will hold my toe, talk like Madam Cleo, and say, “I can feel it, oh lawdy, I can feel it! Two, no, no three inches will be here by noon! Madam Cleo’s toe knows!” Sigh. The people I live with are indeed rude. However, I digress. Allow me to get back to how it doesn’t feel like Halloween.
Although it doesn’t feel like my typical spooky season weather, I will take advantage of the above-average temperatures to clean and winterize my chicken coop. The Bean and I will finally carve our pumpkins, but we will do so outside. It will be nice to have the mess outdoors where the chickens can pick at the pumpkin guts. I will also put my flowers to bed and winterize the fountains before it freezes. It will be nice not to freeze while doing such chores. There are a few upsides to this late in the season warm weather. Also, it looks like trick or treat night will be warm and dry. The Bean is excited to show off her clever Enola Holmes costume without having to wear long underwear or a coat. That is also a positive. We all know it is really about trick or treating.
I will continue to think of the positives about my interrupted spooky season weather and not feel grumpy or lament. As always, dear reader, stay safe, be smart, enjoy the unseasonably warm temperatures, and keep washing your hands.