Naming Fall's leaf colors

While heading back to the house after walking the dogs midday, we saw something we've never seen before. Six red squirrels, all in a line, scampered across the road. Actually, five proceeded across and the last one turned around and disappeared into the woods in front of our house.

red squirrel looking down on Franco's deck domain

Photo by J. Harrington

We see red squirrels regularly. In fact, one of the joys that Franco, the Better Half's border collie cross, has is keeping "his" deck domain free of those dratted squirrels. Franco even recognizes the word unless we spell it out like this:  S-Q-U-I-R-R-E-L. As we watched the reds crossing the road, we could almost hear Franco's brain trying to process whether there was any way he could herd that many squirrels, since he hasn't yet signed up for tree climbing lessons. Watching all of them bounce across the road did look like something out of a Disney movie. We don't recall ever before seeing a squirrel family, never mind on crossing the road. Please don't ask why they were crossing.

Earlier today we ended up taking a long way around through northern Anoka County as we returned from a visit this morning. We remain surprised at how little we saw in the way of leaf color. The MNDNR's Fall Color Finder confirms our observations. There's a bizarre pattern around much of the Twin Cities East, North and West edges showing essentially no Fall colors yet. And as we think of Fall colors, take a look at these 11 Colorful Words for Autumn Foliage so you'll know what you're seeing when the local colors finally arrive.

MNDNR Fall Color Finder 9/23/18

Fall

Edward Hirsch, 1950

Fall, falling, fallen. That’s the way the season 
Changes its tense in the long-haired maples 
That dot the road; the veiny hand-shaped leaves 
Redden on their branches (in a fiery competition 
With the final remaining cardinals) and then 
Begin to sidle and float through the air, at last 
Settling into colorful layers carpeting the ground. 
At twilight the light, too, is layered in the trees 
In a season of odd, dusky congruences—a scarlet tanager
And the odor of burning leaves, a golden retriever 
Loping down the center of a wide street and the sun 
Setting behind smoke-filled trees in the distance, 
A gap opening up in the treetops and a bruised cloud 
Blamelessly filling the space with purples. Everything 
Changes and moves in the split second between summer’s 
Sprawling past and winter’s hard revision, one moment 
Pulling out of the station according to schedule, 
Another moment arriving on the next platform. It 
Happens almost like clockwork: the leaves drift away 
From their branches and gather slowly at our feet, 
Sliding over our ankles, and the season begins moving 
Around us even as its colorful weather moves us, 
Even as it pulls us into its dusty, twilit pockets. 
And every year there is a brief, startling moment 
When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and 
Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless 
Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air: 
It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies; 
It is the changing light of fall falling on us. 

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