Early morning frost

Roundtop has had both frosts and freezes this fall, but this morning was the first hard frost where I could get a photo.  Even though the temperature was a chilly 27 for a few minutes this morning, as soon as the sun rose above the horizon, the warmup began.  Now, just 3 hours after the early morning frost, the temperature is already up to 50, and the frost is long gone. The photos are all that is left.

I like the shadow of the rising sun’s rays on the oak leaf.  You just know that frost will be gone momentarily.  The photo captures the coming warmth of the day in the sun shadows while still showing the result of a cool night. Most of the leaves are down now.  The few that are left are no longer even bronze but are more like a deep copper.  The color is not much different than the color of the bark of the trees, so the forest is nearly monochromatic today.  Even so, I find this a pretty time of year. The long vistas are back.  I can see the mountain to the west, the pond to the north.  I can even monitor the chickens’ whereabouts instead of just hearing their scratching.

I can see the sky again, and monitor the coming rain without having to leave the cabin to find a patch of open sky.  Already the air has a chill, nearly raw feel to it.  I was forced to clear as many leaves off the decks that I can, to avoid a sodden mess when the rain comes.  Likely, my work will only be partly successful, as more leaves are already coming down.  I hope the most of them are removed, but one good wind gust before the rain will be enough to negate my work. 

Fall colors

Nell's Hill

The colors of fall are growing more intense. Each day the colors are more vibrant, and some days I could swear the colors deepen from morning to night. Of course, the golden glow of sunrise and sunset really brightens the shades.

Over the weekend, the area was treated to the first “hello” from old man winter.  We had a brief but intense period of snow, sleet and/or graupel.  Oddly, up on the mountain where I am, less of that fell than almost everywhere else.  I had a brief moment, lasting perhaps 30 seconds of sleet or graupel.  It was after dark when the precipitation fell and it melted almost immediately but there it was.

Now, the brief moment of colder weather is fading, and warmer weather is returning for a brief moment.  That’s the way of fall in this area.  We jump from fall to winter to fall and maybe half a day of summer and then winter again.  It’s impossible to dress appropriately for a full day unless I am near my closet. What’s fine in the morning is terrible by afternoon, or vice versa.

The first frost has also come and gone.  I didn’t have an obvious frost at the cabin so was surprised to see whitened grasses when I left the cabin.  That didn’t last long either.  At least not this time.

Frosty!

This weekend I will be forced to turn the heat on in my cabin. This morning it was 54 degrees in the cabin, and frost covered the plants outside.  Even though my artificial start date of November 1 to turn on the heat is still some days away, I am going to break down and do it today. 54 is just a little too frosty as an indoor temperature for me.

I was toasty enough under my covers, protected by a thick crazy quilt covered with several cats. They cuddle with a vengeance, to the point where I feel as though I’m caught in a strait jacket and can’t move a toe.  Perhaps I’ll have more room when it’s warmer inside.

I do find I am comfortable if the inside temperature is 60 or 62.  The trick, if there is one, is to slowly adjust to the cooler temperature.  If you are used to the higher temperatures that utilities tout as “comfortable,” walking into a room of 60 degrees won’t feel comfortable.  However, if you resist turning on the heat when the temperature inside drops below 70 degrees, you’ll soon find that the human body is quite capable of feeling comfortable at a lower temperature.

One time when I felt hot enough to expire was when I’d been winter backpacking for a week or so and on my way home visited a diner for a good meal.  Even though the other customers kept their coats on, I was sitting by the door peeled down as far as decency would allow.  And I was still sweating like the proverbial pig.  I’d quickly gotten used to living in below freezing temperatures, and a return to a normal temperature seemed terrible.  That said, 54 inside is still too chilly for me. The heat goes on tonight!

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.

Early winter

The forest is brown and bare and still. The winter season is in its early phase; the dusting of snow only dots the old woods road. Perhaps this will be a winter with lots of snow, perhaps not. The chill of winter hangs in the air whether or not snow falls.

Winter is a dry season here, so the cold is more reliable than the snow. The ground is frozen and makes walking more difficult. Every invisible little bump threatens to turn an ankle or cause a misstep when I walk off a trail. The flattened grasses and leaves hide the bumps or holes, and I feel as though I am trying to balance on marbles simply by walking across the old field. I slow down and move more carefully, though that slowness allows the cold to creep under my jacket.

The ponds are frozen, if not yet frozen deep enough to walk on. Dog and Baby Dog eye the ice suspiciously. Dog heads down to the edge of the pond, as though he wants to attempt it. He chooses the wrong spot, where the remains of some summer plant creates a bloom of ice with open water behind it and the sound of rushing water underneath. He steps on the bad ice. It cracks and he retreats. Perhaps if he’d chosen a spot where the ice was smooth and clear... Perhaps tomorrow he will try again.

Whoa, Nellie! I'm not ready for that

I can’t remember the last time my area had a freeze before a frost, but it looks as though that’s what will happen tonight. I guess that means I can add one more item to the list of unusual weather events for 2010. Tonight I’ll have to throw some more straw to the chickens and make sure their pen is readied for cooler weather.

Last evening I found a large flock of Canada geese lounging by and on the largest pond here at Roundtop. I suspect they are migrants, not locals. They were suspicious and flighty, which would be unusual for the local birds that suffered through weeks of adventure camp with more aplomb than I would have guessed. I still have two or three windows that are just barely cracked open at the cabin, and perhaps I’ll make an effort to get them closed tonight. I like to think that not much cold air enters or warm air escapes through them, though that’s probably not so. I just like to hear what’s going on outside, and once those windows are finally closed for the cold months, I can’t hear the woodland sounds or the birds twittering at my feeders.

I can’t pretend to be surprised. I’m within spitting distance of November, after all. Yet, somehow I always feel unprepared for these seasonal chores. Partly, I think it’s because summer feels like a long, extended stretch of unchanging weather to me. And then when fall arrives, it’s a new change every minute or so. It just takes me longer than that to get back in gear after idling for so long.

Frost

Last night the air was still and calm, and this morning I had a bit of a frost. It still wasn’t a freeze, and by my cabin thermometer, the temperature never actually reached 32. That could be misleading, though. I took today’s photo just 50 yards or so down the hill from the cabin, and the temperature apparently did dip to 32 near the ground down there. Dewpoints are usually chillier near the ground than a few feet above it. On still nights like last night, that chillier air isn’t moved around by a breeze, and so low-lying little pockets of air can be colder than the surrounding areas.

The temperature at the cabin is also different from what is found down off the mountain. The temperature here is often several degrees cooler than what people in the suburbs report. It’s cooler in summer, and it’s cooler in winter. I can routinely figure on 3-5 degrees, sometimes it’s as much as 7 degrees.

When you have mountains, air pressure is lower as you go higher. The difference in temperature is usually about 5.4 degrees per 1000 feet. As the altitude difference between suburbia and my cabin is only about 700 feet, the temperature difference between there and here should be around 3.5 degrees cooler at the cabin.

But that’s not the whole story. I also don’t have roofs and macadam and street lights around me. Those things can and do raise nearby temperatures. So the 3.5 degree difference in 700 feet should be true if you’re measuring, say, a forest at 300 feet above sea level to a forest at 1000 feet above. When one area is a forest and the other is urbanized, the temperature differences are more pronounced.

That slight temperature difference apparently also accounts for why at least one of the bird species I routinely see at the cabin is different than what people living in similar habitats off the mountain see. But I'll have more on that tomorrow.

Frost! Finally!

Frost finally found its way to the mountain last night. It wasn't a "maybe it frosted before I saw it" kind of frost. It wasn't a frost that happened 100 feet in altitude below me kind of frost. It was an actual frost. Better a full 30 days late than never, I guess.

This morning the ground was white with it, suddenly changing the landscape to mostly sepia tones and dimming the bright colors of fall. It's more than past time.

So far, November's temperatures are typical ones, perhaps even a tiny bit below normal, though only just and not yet nearly cool enough to make up for the heat of October. I think it was cool enough, and for long enough last night, to be a killing frost. I'll be better able to determine that this evening when I return to the cabin and see if the vegetation is wilting. Still, it's a start.

First Frost

Although it's later than is typical, it appears that tonight will produce the first frost in this area. I'm hoping this will prompt the leaves to change color faster and soon drop their leaves, as I am ready for winter.

The greenery is so thick around the cabin that when the leaves are on the trees, I feel as though I live in a green box. I can't see more than a few feet before the green canopy blocks my view of everything.

Once the leaves fall, I sit out on the back deck, wrapped in a blanket, sipping chocolate or wine, and stare over at the next mountain. I like knowing that no one lives between me and that mountain. Sometimes, I will get out my scope and search for the single porch light of my next nearest neighbor, over near the base of the mountain.

This morning as I left the cabin, the golden morning light on the still-wet leaves almost made me believe the leaves had already reached their peak of color. I wished for a camera, which I didn't have with me. I will take the camera tomorrow morning, though I can't really expect the light to be as spectacular as it was today.