Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Fall colors? Not so much


I’ve pretty much come to accept that this year isn’t going to be a great one for fall colors here on Roundtop. Oh, I could still get some decent color or find some nice little copse where the colors are excellent. Overall, though, I’m not going to expect too much.

The color change is far enough along now that I see a lot of brown and withered leaves, even on large trees that appear to be healthy. The August drought was simply too much and the September rain too little, I guess.

At the cabin, I can begin to see the outline of the western mountain through the impenetrable canopy of green to my west. Last night after I turned the lights out, I was wondering if I’d left a light on upstairs—until I realized the light was from the just barely past first quarter moon streaming into the woods. That’s the first time since May that the canopy was thin enough to allow moonlight to reach the ground.

From my point of view those are both things to the good. The fall colors are a great extra, but they are only an extra. Fewer leaves and crisp temperatures are the real reasons I love the fall.

Note: I will be offline for a few days. Gone Hawkwatching again. I hope to have a few good stories from that excursion when I’m back online. 

4 comments:

Lady Hawk said...

Hello, Caroline! How I envy you and your mountain home! Enjoy your hawk watching. I have some wonderful red shoulder hawks who frequent my yard. They are very vocal and lovely to watch.

Cicero Sings said...

You've described fall as we had it last year-- this year we were back to our beautiful golds. Not much red in our neck of the woods.

Carolyn H said...

Lady Hawk: I love red-shouldered hawks, too. Yesterday I saw just 1, but also had eagles and a goshawk, so that kind of made up for it.

Carolyn H

Carolyn H said...

Cicero: The individual trees aren't beautifully colored this year, but the fall effect across an entire mountain is still pretty impressive! I'll have a few photos when I have a few minutes to download them.

CarolynH.