Fall Hits and Low-Key Halloween

It took a while, but we've finally gotten the fall leaves to turn.  There is an austere beauty in the plants that manage to stick it out into mid-autumn, though maybe austere isn't quite the right word for some of the brilliant colours we get.

The second photo is from my front yard.  In the lower right corner is a burning bush I put in last year.  It has frankly been a big disappointment in that the leaves don't turn bright red, but sort of a dark dusky purple.

Of course, it isn't too long after we get the leaves to turn that they all fall off the trees, and have to be swept/raked up.  In my case, I can put most of them in the back of the yard for composting.

As predicted, it was a fairly rainy Halloween last night.  (It rains most Halloweens, though last year was nice and dry.)  There were a few stretches between 6 and 7 where the rain slowed down to a light drizzle or even a misting, and a few parents brought their kids out, but then around 7 the rain came down pretty heavily again, and the trick-or-treating was effectively over.

My daughter wanted to go out, and she put on a cat costume, but got bored after a few houses.  So we came back in, and she handed out candy for a while.  We switched off the lights at 7:30.  I have some candy left over, but not a ridiculous pile.  (If so, I would have just taken it to work, but I don't think I'll bother.)

We don't put out a lot of decorations, but a couple of posters on the front of the house, and I recently bought some orange outdoor lights.

This year, for the first time in many years, I did carve a pumpkin, under the direction of my daughter.  She wanted it to look like the pumpkin was vomiting out its insides.  Mission accomplished, I think.

Then we set it outside on the bench, and the squirrels made it even a bit grosser.

All in all, a somewhat disappointing Halloween, but it could certainly have been worse.  Incredibly, it was snowing in Chicago* (the snow in our forecast fizzled out a day or two ago, though we'll probably get snow fairly soon).  In Montreal and other parts of Quebec, the heavy rain and winds led to the mayor asking parents to reschedule Halloween to Nov. 1!  I'm sure that went over well, and fortunately there was no rescheduling of Halloween in Toronto.

* I'm still sort of processing just how awful it must be to live in those parts of Chicago where gang-bangers will openly shoot across the street when there are kids around trick-or-treating.  I hope that this terrible event will be too much for some, and that the no-snitch code frays and someone turns them in.