Although we have been retired for five years and have lived in our current home for four, I am still adjusting to the rhythms of this place. When we lived in South Dakota, the first of November was well past the time to put the garden to rest for the winter. Here, the winter is shorter. We have had a few days with mild frost, but I still have dahlias, sunflowers, and a host of other flowering plants that are still producing blossoms. We have tomatoes on the vine. Even though the days are shorter and the fruit is ripening more slowly, we’ve left some of our tomatoes outside, long after we would have picked and processed the green tomatoes when we lived in South Dakota.

In a strange twist from the other places where we have lived, our lawn is green and growing. Autumn moisture has revived the grass that was dormant in July and August. Short days mean it is growing more slowly than at other times of the year, but it will still need to be mowed through November.

For the people who have lived here for a long time, there is nothing unusual about the weather. On a recent rainy day, a friend posted, “Isn’t this why we love the Northwest? Lots of weather.”

Despite what others may think, we did not choose to live here because of the weather. I confess that I don’t miss having to own and maintain a snowblower to keep my driveway accessible, but I don’t think heavy winter snow would have kept us from living near our grandchildren. We live where we do because one of our retirement goals was to live near our children and grandchildren. We had to choose because our two children live on two different sides of the continent. Our daughter lives in South Carolina, and we would love to be closer to her family. It is hard to watch her son grow up and not be able to go to every soccer game, school program, and grandparents’ day. Some days, I wish I could meet her for coffee or give her a quick hug as she rushes off to work.

In that regard, however, we count ourselves as among the most fortunate people in the world. In our mobile society, it is uncommon for multiple generations to live close to one another. We have friends who have grandchildren on other continents. While our South Carolina grandson was born in Japan, they moved back to the U.S. the first year of our retirement. We’ve already purchased our airline tickets to spend Christmas with them this year.

We are lucky to live in a neighborhood with lots of children, and our subdivision attracts many on Halloween night. Each year, I sit out on the front porch and hand out candy to a constant parade of costumed children. And as a bonus, our grandchildren live on a farm with neighbors farther away, so they come to our neighborhood to Trick-or-Treat. Our Halloween tradition is to have a simple supper and invite the grandchildren and their friends to use our house as a base for gathering treats. I have a lot of treats to hand out to the children who come by, but I usually run short by the end of the evening. Our grandchildren collect so many treats as they go around the neighborhood that, toward the end of the evening, they share some of the treats they have gathered to keep my handout bowl filled. There is a sorting process: less desirable treats end up in the bowl for recycling, while the favorites are retained for consumption. I don’t mind the sorting because, in general, the younger children show up at our door earlier in the evening, and after 7:30 or so, most of the ones coming are middle school-aged.

Unlike some of my friends and neighbors, I don’t mind handing out treats to older youth. I think going to the effort of coming up with a costume and walking around the neighborhood asking for treats is not a bad way for them to invest their time. There are a thousand ways they could get into trouble, and even if they don’t, walking around the neighborhood with their friends is far better for them than spending time on their cell phones or playing video games. They’ll get a treat from me if they come to my house.

Halloween this Friday will be a fun evening for me, but it is also a reminder that there is work to be done. Even with the longer season, I plan to spend the next week mulching in the strawberry bed, digging dahlia tubers and storing them for next spring, pulling up the tomato plants, cutting back the raspberries, and preparing the beds for winter rest. I have a winter game that I play with the hanging flower baskets. I put them on the back porch, where they can get sunlight, and it is a bit warmer, since they are next to the house. When they die, I clean out the pots and store them for the following year. However, last winter, a couple of plants survived the winter. Since they were hardy, I kept them in their pots and added a bit of soil and a few other plants. They also got a bit of extra fertilizer in the early summer.

I’m not much of a gardener. We have neighbors who take cuttings from their geraniums. In fact, they’re so good at it that we get new geraniums from them each spring. I’m content to dig up my dahlias and store the tubers. It’s like digging potatoes. I leave the daffodil, iris, and tulip bulbs in the ground. We won’t need to plant any more of them this fall.

Unlike the news anchors and several of our neighbors, I can believe November is nearing. I won’t be saying, “I can’t believe it’s November” to anyone. I can believe it. I enjoy it. And I’m ready to welcome the changes in the weather. I won’t even mind shoveling a bit of snow.