She can be sweet and warm or nasty and cold, depending upon which way the wind blows.

She pushes September out of the way to say, “It’s my time now and I’m ready to howl!” Halloween is the perfect ending of her month of tricks and treats.

She’s often a teaser, sometimes a pleaser. She’ll tickle your fancy with a beautiful sunny day, almost as if to say, “Summer’s back!” But then she’ll remind you about what’s coming after her with night and early morning temperatures dropping to near 40 degrees.

Showing off her artistic talents are her finest hours. Brilliant autumn foliage adorns a canvas of countryside colors but beware of its fleeting beauty. Once the leaves have fallen and the rakes and blowers come out, her trees are a harbinger of a perpetual November, when we might find ourselves singing, “There ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone.”

She has a few special dates in her month that seem to get unnoticed. International Non-Violence Day is this week. Sunday is World Animal Day. Monday is World Teachers’ Day. Other days in her month bring attention to mental health, poverty and the United Nations.

If you were born in October, astrology says you are a social person, diplomatic, fair-minded, charming and creative in your nature. You love meaningful relationships and you value sincere trust and emotional honesty. You are intense, passionate and very protective of your inner circle of family and friends. You share your birth month with Mahatma Ghandi, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bruno Mars, John Lennon, Snoop Dogg and Bill Gates.

Poet Rainbow Rowell praised the month. She wrote, “October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup. October, tuck tiny candy bars in my pockets and carve my smile into a thousand pumpkins. O autumn! O teakettle! O grace!”

Author Ray Bradbury described a different 10th month of the year in his story, “Long After Midnight.” He wrote, “He had never liked October. Ever since he had first lay in the autumn leaves before his grandmother’s house many years ago and heard the wind and saw the empty trees. It had made him cry, without a reason. And a little of that sadness returned each year to him. It always went away with spring.”

For those who love the ends of hot summers, Sarah Guillory wrote, “October had tremendous possibility. The summer’s oppressive heat was a distant memory, and the golden leaves promised a world full of beautiful adventures. They made me believe in miracles.”

October is the season of miracles. She blazes the mountains and valleys with palates of passionate yellows, reds, browns and oranges. The autumnal trees thrust their chests in displays of nature’s fireworks, and like the ones shot into the sky, the leaves will fall, sending us into a barren of black November days with wintry nights that follow.

Author Peggy Toney Horton wrote, “Ah, Lovely October, as you usher in the season that awakens my soul, your awesome beauty compels my spirit to soar like a leaf caught in an autumn breeze and my heart to sing like a heavenly choir.”

It seems to me that Ms. Horton has never spent a windy Saturday morning raking the backyard leaves for three hours, only to find out on Sunday that the yard is covered again with the fallen foliage.

There’s plenty of humor about these 31 days. Katie Nicole Felton said, “Some say fall is the season when the leaves change. I say it’s the season when my sweatpants never change.”

Someone else described her fickle behavior. “She’s when your weather application can go from ‘prepare for sunburn’ to “build an igloo” in a single day.”

Of course, as soon as we turn the calendar to her page, homes and stores make an entire month all about the last day. Ghouls, goblins and ghosts of all ages, shapes and sizes stalk the streets in search of anything and everything that sugar coats the human throat. Some great and creative costumes we see each year, but I recall the best one I saw long ago on Halloween night in New Jersey.

The doorbell rang and I opened it to recognize a neighborhood high school boy wearing no costume and holding an open bag in front of me. He was dressed in a hoodie and jeans.

“So, tell me,” I said. “What are you supposed to be with your hoodie and jeans look?”

“I’m the scariest creature that walks the earth,” he said. “I’m a teenager.”

I laughed so hard and for his clever reply, I gave him extra candy.

Our favorite monsters reappear each year during the night of the dead, when cemeteries and old houses are filled with haunting spirits. Freddie Krueger, Jason, Dracula, Frankenstein and the werewolf scare us again and again. My favorite scary movies that I will never watch again are “The Exorcist” and “The Omen,” because of my upbringing with the liturgies of the Catholic Church.

Singer Barry Manilow takes a nostalgic journey in his song “When October Goes.” He sings, “And when October goes, the same old dream appears, and you are in my arms to share happy years. I turn my head away to hide hopeless tears. Oh, how I hate to see October go.”

I will hate to see October go because we know what’s coming in the months ahead.

See, I can’t say what that is, but you know what I’m talking about.

Email Rich Strack at richiesadie11@gmail.com