October

O Lord, how manifold are your works! (Ps. 104:24a)

In October autumn is more than a date on the September calendar.

The daylight hours begin to contract rapidly.  One morning the frost will lie on the lawn in the front yard.  The tomato plants behind the shed will hang limp on their supports. If I have thought ahead, I have picked the green fruit placing them on newspaper in the garage to let them ripen in the cool and semi darkness.

After the frost the bulbs of Elephant Leaves will need to be dug.  I select a few to keep overwinter in a cool indoor room.  I hate to let the others go to waste but to not use some judgement these manifold works of the Lord would result in a yard full of elephant ears next year with little room for anything else.

Leaves will turn brown, red, yellow and orange and fall blown in the October winds to visit in drifts in a neighbor’s yard.  Where burning is permitted the attracting smell of incinerating foliage will fill the air.  Paper sacks will be lined up at the end of the driveway on trash day to be taken by young men riding on the sides of trucks to a composting site.  With a mulching mower you can create your own compost or pile them in a corner of the yard for use next spring.  Be sure to cover them with a tarp or they make go visiting your neighbor.

When night time temperatures fall below forty, it’s time to bring in the Christmas cactus which will be in such a hurry to bloom for Christmas, they will burst out in red and pink in time for Thanksgiving.

October brings Thanksgiving to Canada.  Lutherans celebrate the Reformation.  Some children are confirmed.  Halloween looms large for many.  What was once a children’s celebration of candy and costumes has been taken over by adults.

Baseball heads toward the World Series.  Football, college and pro, get down to serious business.

October also brings the childhood memory of watching snow fall outside our one room country school; of tramping through woods; circling a tree with a single shot .22 in hand hoping to catch sight of the circling grey squirrel high up in the tree branches.  Geese will fill the sky with their Victory signs as they wing their way south.

O Lord my God, you are very great!  You are clothed with splendor and majesty. (Ps 104:1b)