The month peak color comes and goes

It looks like the weather may have finally turned the corner from Summer to Autumn, more than a month after the start of meteorological autumn and a couple of weeks after the equinox. Maple trees are showing more color. Pines are shedding their needles. Aspen and birch leaves are mostly gold. Seed heads from purple love grass are flying everywhere and the last few really windy days have turned a few trees almost leafless.

maples starting to show color

Photo by J. Harrington

Today we saw another wooly bear looking very much like the one we reported on last week, about four ginger bands in the middle and each end black. No frost yet locally. Most birds coming to the feeder are year round residents like woodpeckers, nuthatches, chickadees, cardinals and goldfinches. Every now and then a pair of bluejays stop by.

We’ve been going through an extended dry spell for the past month or so. Fire danger has been high enough that I’ve not even thought about torching the back yard brush pile. If it sits until spring, that’s no big deal although I would like to get it gone so we can replace it with more of the downed branches lying around. The electric weed whacker we recently acquired is helping to bring a modicum or orderliness to some of the overgrown areas around the place. That’s going to be a continuing project. We may see if the battery-powered chain saw diminishes the buckthorn that’s trying to overrun the woods.

All in all it’s been a mostly pleasant week up North here. We celebrated the Granddaughter’s fourth birthday and her parents tenth anniversary. No signs of Helene but we may well pay for it come blizzard season, or might climate change temper our upcoming winter? We’ll see.

Autumn's Gold

by George MacDonald

Along the tops of all the yellow trees,

The golden-yellow trees, the sunshine lies;

And where the leaves are gone, long rays surprise

Lone depths of thicket with their brightnesses;

And through the woods, all waste of many a breeze,

Cometh more joy of light for Poet's eyes—

Green fields lying yellow underneath the skies,

And shining houses and blue distances.

By the roadside, like rocks of golden ore

That make the western river-beds so bright,

The briar and the furze are all alight!

Perhaps the year will be so fair no more,

But now the fallen, falling leaves are gay,

And autumn old has shone into a Day! 

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.