Dull fall colors

Franklin Township, York County PA

No getting around it; this fall just isn’t producing much in the way of pretty fall colors. Some individual trees are showing half-decent color, but the overall appearance of the mountains is pretty drab. A fair number of  trees have lost their leaves entirely, so the chances that the remaining leaves will suddenly brighten up seems highly unlikely.

The deer that were living next to my cabin and growing tamer by the minute seem to have moved on.  I don’t know why, though two possibilities jump to mind.  One is that they may have exhausted the supply of acorns and hickory nuts in that patch of woods.  The other is that now that leaves are falling and the forest understory is opening up, perhaps they are skittish of being seen in the more open forest.  Perhaps all this time they thought they were hidden when they were perfectly in view, and now they know they aren’t hidden.  Whatever the answer, they were not around this weekend.

Despite the wind and chill temperatures over the past week, this October will be warmer than average.  Those 10 days of very warm weather at the beginning of the month were the cause of that.  With the more seasonal weather of the past week, October 2013 will still be warmer than average, but it will fall into the once-every-five-years or so level of warmer instead of the warmest ever.

At the cabin, the heat is now on, though I still keep the indoors fairly cool.  58-60 is a good comfort range for me.  I wear a sweater and sometimes a beret or a knit cap.  As long as my nose and fingers aren’t cold, I’m comfortable.