By Roger Chambers
October is a month of fall colors across the Mohawk Valley. The scenic beauty of leaves with varying shades of green changing to red, yellow, orange and brown is delightful. This colorful display peaks about October 1 in the southern Adirondacks, mid to late month in the Mohawk Valley, and early November in the Chenango and Susquehanna Valleys.
With frosty mornings occasionally, the month’s average low temperature is 39°F, with a record low in Utica of 13°F on October 20, 1972. Afternoons are often pleasant, with an average high of 61°F and a record height of 89°F on October 1, 1953. Sometimes, snow flurries come late in the month, rarely leaving any accumulation.
In the yard and garden, the lawn is mowed for the last time. The final tomatoes and beans are picked before heavy frost. Pulling remnants of vegetable plants is part of a general clean up the garden. Planting garlic and bulbs of spring-blooming crocuses, hyacinths, daffodils, and tulips is best done in mid to late October.
One day in mid-October, the garden is full of late summer annuals like marigolds and cosmos. The next morning, most blooms have turned brown or black, except perhaps mums which bloom into November. The date varies, even for locations only a short distance apart, largely related to elevation and distance from lakes or large rivers. For Utica, fall’s first frost is about October 10, but this occurs a few weeks earlier in the southern Adirondacks and some southern hills of Otsego and Madison Counties, and a few weeks later in the Chenango and Susquehanna Valleys.
Most October weekends there are several apple, pumpkin and harvest festivals held throughout central New York region. There are pumpkin festivals in Norwich and Cooperstown, apple festivals at Fly Creek Cider Mill near Cooperstown and Critz Farms near Cazenovia, and corn field mazes in Stittville and Remsen. Some of these include late afternoon or evening traditional hay rides, especially closer to Halloween.
By mid to late October a jacket is might be welcome for daytime activities, and certainly necessary if going to an evening football game or for an evening hay ride near Halloween. However, for those who like indoor activities, it is the start of ice hockey and basketball season (though the first home Comets game is not until November 1 this year). The theater and music season is in full swing, with theatrical productions at the Players or Utica, Rome Community Theater, and Ilion Stables. Classical, jazz and folk music are heard at the Stanley. Stanley and local colleges and arts centers, and of course, the Brewery District of Utica has a variety of rock at nightclubs.
Holidays and Observances in October
September 15-October 15 Hispanic Heritage Month
October 2 Child Health Day
October 6 German American Day
October 7 Oneida County History Day
October 9 Columbus Day (observed); Native American Day (South Dakota)
Leif Erikson Day; Thanksgiving Day (Canada)
October 11 General Casimir Pulaski Day
October 15 White Cane Safety Day; Poetry Day
October 18 Alaska Day
October 25 United Nations Day
October 27 Nevada Day
October 31 Halloween
Columbus Day is a major Italian heritage holiday, but has fewer large celebrations and parades that were quite common a few decades ago. For most people, it is the last three day holiday weekend before it gets really cold. Some take a brief get away to the city, while others prefer to take a last hike in the Adirondacks before winter sets in.
Halloween dominates the last half of October, with costume parties, trick-or-treating, and haunted houses with witches, goblins, and vampires. Many people decorate their porches or yards with home-carved pumpkins, witches, skeletons, and orange / brown harvest wreaths and other fall decorations.
In the Night Skies
Full Harvest Moon October 5
Last Quarter October 12
New Moon October 19
First Quarter October 27
Astrology: Libra – Reins September 23 to October 22
Scorpio – Secrets October 23 to November 22
There is a 3 day conjunction of Mars and Venus from October 4-6, seen very low in the east about an hour prior to sunrise, starting perhaps 5:30 a.m. Venus is a magnitude -4 and about 250 times the brightness of Mars. On the 18th and 19th, a rare chance to view Uranus with binoculars, this would be in Pieces to the east in the evening. The waning crescent Moon may be seen with Mars to its right on the 17th and Venus above it on the 18th in the pre-dawn eastern sky. Venus is lower on the eastern horizon and near the end of its current cycle as a morning star.
From October 21-22 is the Orionid Meteor Shower, which should clearly visible (if not cloudy) as the Moon is a thin, waxing crescent setting before 8 p.m. Orion, one of the best known constellations becomes prominent in the southern pre-dawn sky. The Full Harvest Moon, the name for the Full Moon closest to the autumnal equinox of September 22, is on October 5 this year.
Rising and Setting of the Sun, Moon and Visible Planets on October 21
Sunrise 7:23 a.m. Sunset: 6:07 p.m.
Moonrise 8:57 a.m. Moonset: 7:36 p.m.
Venus rises 5:40 a.m.
Mars rises 4:51 a.m.
Saturn sets 9:05 p.m.
Uranus sets 7:19 a.m.
