View From ThE Apple House

Many years ago I wrote a column titled “Sandals in October” due to the unusually warm weather we experienced in upstate New York.

Here it is another October and it’s been even warmer than then. To add insult to injury we’re in the midst of a drought, causing all the fruit trees to produce smaller quantities of apples, peaches, plums and other stone fruits, if at all. It’s not been a good year for farming in general, although some have fared better than others. I guess it just depends on how close you are to the lake, the Great Ontario, from which I live a stone’s throw away, if a stone could be thrown for a mile and a half.

The leaves are starting to turn earlier now as well, another thing I wasn’t prepared for. It still feels like summer and the crunching of fallen leaves under my flip flops as I venture to the mailbox opposite my house feels surreal.

The ceiling fans whirl vigorously during the day, while the heat grinds on in the evening, as the temperature drops like a pot full of potatoes slipping out of the carriers hand to the floor. It’s not how things should be and should never have happened in the first place.

But I am grateful to see the sun from my Halloween themed porch for a few more mornings, to listen to the birdsong before they go south while I sip hot coffee, and watching squirrels scurry doing their last minute “shopping” before the season really changes.

I get to sit and listen, the result of retirement coming a little sooner than expected. It’s been quite an adjustment, this change in routine and outlook. I wasn’t ready, but it was ready for me.

Flip flops in October. Who’d have thought we’d be gifted the double edged sword of two seasons in one.

May you always appreciate the changing of the times and adjust accordingly.