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After a chilly September, October’s weather has been lovely. Lovely enough to give me the jitters. October isn’t supposed to be this nice, right?

Wrong!

Take a look at this post from October 12, 2007. From the sounds of things, the weather was just as lovely. And from the sounds of things, I need to review a lesson learned four years ago: I can’t change the weather, but I can look for the beauty it holds.

October Garden – Recycled

The calendar says it’s October. And for the past few days, the chilly mornings have confirmed that truth. But every time I look at my garden, I check the calendar again. The cosmos just started blooming in September, and several more buds are waiting to open. The roses keep sending out new buds. One pink blossom tangles with a white mum, like wrestlers on the mat.

Strangest of all are my pepper plants. In August, with several sweet red peppers bending the branches low, they began blooming again. Within a week, new fruit was setting. I planned to pick them green since there wasn’t enough ripening weather left. But in last week’s warm spell, they began turning red. And even though the weather has cooled since then, the frosts have held off and the peppers get a little redder every day.

This long growing season should thrill me. Each fall I mourn the cooler days and longer nights. Instead, it’s making me uneasy because the natural order of the seasons has been disturbed. Plus, this longer growing season means I’m still watering plants and pulling weeds when I should be doing fall stuff like covering the rose bushes and picking up walnuts.

Just when I get ready to pick the peppers and pull up the plants, my personal method of getting the seasons in proper working order again, I come up against the truth. I can’t change the weather. I can only experience it and look for beauty in it. So this morning I grabbed my camera and took pictures of a rare October garden. And as I gratefully preserved its beauty, my heart found peace.