I don’t know if what we have been enjoying qualifies as Indian Summer or not, but I like it.
We are now half-way through October and the weather recently has been more like September with temps around 65-70 degrees during the days and cool- sometimes frosty overnight.
The color around here, although it is not completely turned yet, is still pretty spectacular. I’ve been doing some driving lately and I’m sure enjoying the show.
Better enjoy it while we can. I think it will be peak color in about a week, then the leaves will be coming down like rain every time the wind blows around here. When fall is like this, mostly sunny with bright reds, oranges and yellows on the early turning trees, it really is a beautiful time of year.
We had lunch Monday with family in Shepherd, where the color downtown is absolutely glorious and seems further along than around here, where it is, while beautiful in places, still spotty.
And there’s still flowers blooming all over the place, in fact, my marigolds are pretty spectacular although we have had a little frost some mornings (today for instance).
The feeders are still going strong, although the hummers are long gone now. We still have a pretty full crew attacking those seeds several times a day. Jack has to fill them about every second or third day just to keep those little beggars happy.
Halloween is only a couple of days over two weeks away, and I’m sure the youngsters are already busy deciding what to wear for the occasion. Hopefully our mild weather will hold on so they can have a good time when they are out Trick or Treating. All our area communities, Clare, Farwell and Harrison, will hold their annual hours on the 31st, which falls on Monday this year. Harrison hours will be from 5 to 7 pm; Farwell’s Trick or Treat hours are from 5:30 – 7:30 pm; Clare, Rosebush, Coleman and Mt. Pleasant will all have Trick or Treat hours from 6 to 8 pm.
I love holidays, but Halloween is one of my all-time favorites. As a youngster, months of planning went into the costume. When the big night finally arrived trick or treating in town was always topped off at the annual school Halloween Carnival, complete with a costume contest and even a bonfire out in back of the school, complete with marshmallows to roast.
Guess I never really grew up – no surprise there Jack would say – because when our youngsters were little I always got dressed up and went trick or treating with them. When they got a little older and no longer wanted Mom as a chaperone, I still got dressed up and sort of “hung around” our own front door waiting to scare certain selected neighborhood youngsters. Later in the evening I would go out and ring a few friends’ doorbells as well. Some of those people are still wondering who that old hag was…
Now that I am a bit older, and a “semi-retired” respectable business person, I try to limit the shenanigans like a “sedate” old lady should.
In fact, Halloween is almost as popular with the adult set as New Year’s Eve. One in every four adults “dresses up” for the occasion.
Halloween originated as “All Hallows Eve,” the holy evening before All Saint’s Day. It was once a night to really be feared, when many believed the souls of dead wandered freely. In Celtic history, these wandering spirits were offered food and drink, then “tricked” into leaving town.
Even before the Celts, the Druids (an order of priests in ancient Gaul and Britain) believed that on Halloween, ghosts, spirits, witches and elves came out to harm people.
Jack-o-lanterns originated with an Irish tale about a man named Jack who couldn’t enter heaven because of his miserliness and couldn’t get into hell because he played practical jokes on the devil, so he was condemned to walk the earth with his lantern until “judgment day.”
Black cats, another Halloween staple, were believed in ancient days to be humans being punished for evil deeds during their life.
Whatever the origins, Halloween these days is simply ghoulishly fun for young and old alike.
Fun fact for all you “weather watchers” out there. October 2nd was the first snow flurries in Michigan, spotted at Negaunee, southwest of Marquette. In the Mitten, the first snowflakes were spotted in Gaylord on October 7th.