The week has brought forth a number of seasonal changes and fall-scapes. With something just short of a flourish, the Halloween decorations were happily removed from The Urban Porch ™ very early the following morning – so ready to have them gone. The webs and plastic spiders are cleared out, the ghoul and skeleton are stowed up in the attic, where no doubt they will suddenly startle me at some time much later, when I happen to go up there again searching for something and encounter a grinning skull.

Since it didn’t rain and was not brutally cold on Halloween night, the neighborhood was pretty busy. I sat outside on the porch in my winter coat for a few hours with a huge and quickly emptying bowl of candy propped in my lap, alternately distributing the goodies and stuffing my face with M&M’s and Snickers bars to the point of almost nausea. You would think I would learn by now.

Skelly was propped so it peered out the window and looked toward the porch with glowing eyes.

Observations for this year – most of the costumes were not as spectacular as in the past, but there were a few good ones. Most notably, the kids were way more polite than in previous Halloweens. The little ones were all smiling, calling out “Trick or Treat!” and waving. Everybody, even the older kids that arrived later, were pleasant and said “Thank you”. The parents were friendly. Nobody was pushy or grabby. Nothing was broken or stolen either.

While the littles carried small plastic pumpkins to collect their booty and many had pillow cases (memories of my own youth), it seems using a backpack to hold the candy haul is a popular vessel, especially with the older ones. Some of those packs were overflowing.

One of my younger grandkids insisted he wanted to dress up as a traffic cone. I was skeptical, but I would say it ended up being a favorite.

The autumn leaf season has peaked and is fading; the trees have begun to drop their leaves en masse, while October-scented woods still hold some hazy parcels of color to enjoy. A heron perches by late fall greenery near a brook.

On our walk, Rudi and I admire the last gasps of color reflected in the pond. He takes his “job” seriously, stopping and waiting for me to catch up to him on a trail blanketed in ochre.

In the neighborhood, bright lemon and butterscotch fans of gingko leaves carpet the sidewalks and street, lending a golden feast for the eyes – but an olfactory insult where the nuts have fallen and broken open, perfuming the air with sporadic whiffs of gingko-vomit.

Our neighbor’s cat holds court while she basks on the sidewalk among fallen oak leaves in front of their house, laying claim to her property while casting a seasonal picture.

Night visitors have returned to the back yard and are quite active. A small tribe of raccoons and one waddling resident opossum seem especially interested in the empty paint and compound buckets sitting out back by the barn.

The other night a pair of skunks paraded around the driveway in tandem, creating a “W” pattern.

In anticipation of the first frost, the porch plants of summer were either brought inside or discarded, depending on their health. Unfortunately, I forgot the large remaining pot of basil, most of which didn’t make it. The fig tree dropped its last leaves, was cut back and brought indoors to winter over.

The Burning Bush has deposited a fiery carpet onto the ground, its red berries remaining behind as ornament to the next season.

November. Tonight we set our clocks to “fall back” again as we fall back into longer hours of darkness and colder days. Time to put gardens to bed, gather our blankets, take out the soup pot and prepare for the upcoming time of hunkering down.