It's Fall!

For me, the first signs of fall are the yellowing, dropping leaves from the tulip poplar in the back yard.  It's always nice to see--even when it's still hot and humid--because then there's real certainty that fall is just around the corner . . . in a couple of months, anyway.

I like the sound of dry leaves on pavement . . . the way they scratchily whirl around in the wind and collect together in bunches.

Here's Tippy the Cat enjoying a nap on the warm pavement.  Usually, I have to chase her around if I want to catch her and bring her inside.  When she's like this, I can often just scoop her up.  It's almost as if she's paralyzed by the warmth--all floppy and droopy.

Here's one of the many squirrels that visit our tiny patch of woods.  Can you see him?  He's enjoying some sunflower seeds.  We routinely see groundhogs, opossums, rabbits, deer and turtles.  Once--only once, during the years and years I've lived here--I saw a river otter cross the back yard at the cliff's edge.  Oh, yeah, and the chiggers.  There are lots of them!

There are bald eagles, ospreys, Great Blue herons, kingfishers, turkey vultures and a wide variety of smaller birds--both woodland and shore types.  Occasionally, we find a dead fish in the yard.

I snapped this pic on the way home from my visit with Mom last week, at our little, fire-department annex near our community.  Actually, sometimes forest fires are unavoidable, like the one down there at the Virginia-North Carolina border--in a place called the Great Dismal Swamp.  Hard to imagine a 6,000-acre fire burning out of control in a swamp.  Nevertheless, it's true.

We've had the smoke and other airborne material all the way up here in Calvert County to prove it.  It's reached up to Annapolis, I understand.

The material burning is kind of like peat, and the particles must be very oily.  We had some rain one day, and cars were skidding off the roads into ditches because of the slick surfaces.

Check out Smokey's belt buckle!  I think Smokey and friends could use a make-over.  This sign looks about 50 years old.

Comments

[Margaret]

I do notice that our nighttime temps are dropping into the high 40s, so the leaves should start changing here too. I have mixed feelings about fall. As I told my daughter, IF I ever get to retire, maybe August and September will be my favorite months of the year. Until then, I spend too much of my time fretting.

[Pam Jones]

Tippy the Cat is adorable! I'm a big fan of tuxedo kitties, which is what she is I believe. They seem to attach to people more readily or have stronger personalities than some other kitty types. Or maybe I've just been affected by Oliver, Socks, and Jerry, tuxedos I've known, loved, and lost.

Doug thought he smelled that Great Dismal Swamp fire too! We'll never know for sure of course, but after reading about it in the paper (doesn't that sound old-fashioned all of a sudden?) he recalled driving down 270 (I think it was 270) on the day the smoke was reported in our general area and being aware of a smokiness in the air.

Thanks for mentioning the peat. A few years ago I got fixated on peat and peat moss (probably from some argument that I saw on Garden Rant) and did a bunch of reading about it. I need to go back and refresh my memory. I like all things having to do with soil: worms, compost, dust, peat. It's the covering for the Earth and turns eventually into the coal and oil we suck out of the planet (not to mention growing the food we eat) so it seems terribly important to me. ya know what I mean?