As we rode slowly in a trailer amidst some mud, some hay and a family with a toddler, a friend jokingly asked me, “Is this the sort of thing you do in Challis in the fall?” Actually, the first time I’d even heard of the “going to a pumpkin patch” phenomenon was my freshman year of college in Oregon – I’d never known about it while in Idaho. So I joked back, “Nope. We just grow our own pumpkin patches.”

The joke held quite a bit of truth, which is maybe why I thought it was so funny. I reflected on my comment later in the week when I called my grandma on the phone.

A lot of families hold the tradition of driving to a farm, picking out a pumpkin, going through the corn maze, drinking hot chocolate and then going home to revel in their fall adventure. I didn’t think I’d had any of my own particular fall traditions or memories like that, but recalling that homegrown pumpkin patch made me think again.

I remember the little mounds next to the woodpile in the garden; once or twice I received the privilege of plopping the seeds into the holes my grandpa dug in the mounds. I was impatient all summer because everything else in the garden grew and made fruit and I got to pick it and eat it, but the pumpkin plants grew so slowly. I don’t know if that long wait made it more exciting or less exciting when the pumpkins were finally big enough to see and pick and carve into jack-o-lanterns.

In one memory that I recall being from October, we found kittens whose mother had given birth in the woodpile. We decided to convince the kittens to stay and tried taming them the best we could. As gentle and quiet as seven-year-old me tried to be, those skittish wild cats wouldn’t let me be helpful in the taming process. My breath fogged up the utility room window while I eagerly watched my older cousin become friends with the cats, baiting them with cat food from the tin barrel. The utility room always seemed to smell like cat food.

The sideboard was underneath the window overlooking the front deck, right by the door. It’s where I left my coat, gloves, hat, shoes, books, snacks, or anything else that I would need to take back home from Grandma’s. The sideboard was draped with a bright blue and green cloth with all of Gram’s potted plants setting on it.

By the October in this memory, the cats now ate on the front deck, and I would sprint from the kitchen and hurl myself against the sideboard to peer through the plants and out the window to see if any of the cats were eating so they might let me feel their cold fur. The leaves brushed my face – the only plants I knew that stayed green and leafy through the winter.

Nothing outside stayed green, and I think that’s why I’ve never particularly liked fall. The corn stalks, the pea plants, the potato leaves were all dead and withered, and the squash and pumpkins would soon follow. The apple and plum trees lost their leaves so quickly, and all that was ever left was gnarled, flaky branches in a sea of dead brown grass. The cottonwood trees were big and imposing and always left a mess everywhere. Their dead brown leaves mixed in with the not-yet-frozen dirt and seemed to coat everything in drab death.

Maybe I remember those brown autumn images so much because I liked to play out back, and the dead plants made it less fun. I focused on the brown decay near me rather than the beautiful view down the canyon or the vast amount of space around me – those were things I never really noticed until I came back as an adult. Instead of the view or amount of land, memories of the backyard make me think of my generations of coats. A very fuzzy memory of small Jazmine wearing a very fuzzy fleece jacket; being too cold in my SpongeBob sweatshirt; the red, oversized coat, followed by the series of blue coats all through elementary school.

But this fall is much different than those in the past. I won’t run around trying to make the cats pay attention to me – those cats have all long passed on anyway. And I won’t have to worry about the cottonwood trees which I hate so much – they got chopped down several years ago anyway. I won’t stand in awe that Grandma’s calla lily on the sideboard is still blooming in the middle of November – a lot of the plants here stay green and lively year-round. This fall, my new Columbia rain jacket won’t have the opportunity to earn a spot in the backyard coat hall of fame.

Instead, I’ll stay in western Oregon and do their traditions, riding with the hay and my friends to a field where I’ll stomp around in mud until I find a pumpkin that looks good. I’ll enjoy colorful leaves that stick on the trees for months at a time, and I’ll not freeze in snow and subzero temperatures by November. I guess it’ll be fine. But I don’t know if it'll beat Grandma’s.