October Is Such A Beautiful Month

This was written for a prompt about pleasant photography. It can’t be my photography as my photography isn’t always very pleasant. After ‘fixing it’ it is not the right size for the photo space.

The photo above is visible driving up the North Shore past Duluth, Minnesota. At least it looks familiar to me. This spot is less than two hours from where I live in Minnesota. If this isn’t where the photo was taken, then it has a twin spot.

Snow can happen anytime in Minnesota and it has been known to snow by Halloween. I have seen apples left on an apple tree well into October and some places are only beginning to pick the first part of October. Five years ago there was snow on the ground by now.

I have been given apples and picked apples in October for many years. As a family, we have gone to the Bayfield, Wisconsin apple festival, where there is apple everything for sale.

All three of my children were in the marching band for Cloquet High School and marched at Bayfield. Two with Trombones and one with a Trumpet.

It was a full moon on the 29th of September and there were several people having trouble that I know about. I have been told for years that the full moon affects some people more than others.

One person went as far as telling me that law enforcement, hospital emergency rooms, and other places are on alert around the full moon. Because I have a full moon on my calendar, I am more aware of what that means.

The person telling me about the moons said, that with some full moons, there are more babies born, while others affect alcoholics and drug addicts, still, other moons make it difficult for the schizophrenic. She said there are more heart attacks on some full moons.

I wonder if that is all that is affected by the full moon. I have been noticing in the last several years that I am more affected than ever. About every three months. I wonder what category I fit into.

A lot is going on this month. Halloween is the end of the month and before that, there are pumpkins, apples, picking boughs, and a few other things. My grandson wants to go to a haunted house this year. There is one at the school in our town. The kids do a nice job.

His first challenge was to attend a movie with his grandparents. Scary but not a horror. His grandma doesn’t like horror. Scary is enough. We saw The Haunting in Venice. He thought it was great and was sure his little sister and mom would like it too. He is hoping for another viewing.

We came home and watched Yellowstone on television, and he saw the same woman he watched in the movie in a different role. That may have been too much for him as I found myself explaining men getting branded like cattle and a man killing another.

Fall is fun for the most part! That much is certain. The beauty, the parties, the adventure, the spookies. The trick-or-treaters are less than when we lived in the big city. We would get 100+ kids at the door. Now, it is our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The pumpkins are ripe, so that means everything is pumpkin and pumpkin flavored. And then of course the apple cider and other sweet treats.

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A version of this story was Published by Reciprocal for a challenge by Sahil Patel in medium.com

Other stories tagged were, Sahil Patel and Cristina Cattai