Friday, October 12, 2012

Not much longer

Daisy fleabane
This little patch of daisy fleabane likely won’t last much longer. Neither will the four brown-eyed susans I saw this morning, nor the very last of the evening primrose. Tonight will come the first freeze of the fall season. Not merely a frost, either, which would be more common this time of October, but an actual freeze.

I am hopeful the freeze will also spell the end for stinkbugs, mosquitoes and ticks, though I’m probably overly hopeful about that. The freeze should also move the color change along a bit faster. To my eye, the forest looks more dry than colorful at the moment.

In fall, the trees “bloom” with nature’s color, like giant flowers. Spring’s colors are beautiful, too, but on a much tinier scale. Tiny rue anemone or wild geranium dot the forest floor with small spots of color like well-hidden Easter eggs. In fall, the color is all encompassing. That part just hasn’t happened here yet.

2 comments:

Scott said...

No frost or freeze here further east, Carolyn. Just 36 degrees for a low here this morning.

A freeze might zap the mosquitoes and the stink bugs, but I doubt that it'll have much of an effect on the ticks. They're just so darn hardy.

Scott said...

Ignore my last message, Carolyn. We did have a light frost in the lowest portion of my yard--just where the garden is located. The basil--super-sensitive to frost--was black when I went out to tend the garden yesterday (Saturday) afternoon.