Well, that wasn't a lot of fun...

As far as the weather goes, this past weekend was as nasty as it gets without being an ice storm, a tornado or a flood. Most nor’easters move up the coast quickly and don’t affect the local weather for 3.5 days. This time a cold, hard, wind-driven rain fell continuously, and the temperature ranged between 35-38.

As soon as the rain lessened to a drizzle on Sunday morning, I was out with my camera. The forecast was for more wind, and I was afraid the fall colors would disappear before I could see them. The rain finally let up for good in the mid-morning, and within 5-10 minutes the sky was alive with birds. The turkey vultures were even aloft before the rain completely stopped. The poor things were probably starving and seemed to spend the entire storm sitting in dead trees and looking miserable.

Within moments after the rain stopped, the sky filled with south-bound Canada geese. I don’t know where they were sheltering from the storm, perhaps along the Susquehanna River, but in any event many big flocks were moving south throughout the morning and into the afternoon. They wasted no time getting aloft, probably figuring they had waited too long as it was.

During the storm my bird feeders were largely empty. It was as though the cabin birds didn’t want to come out of wherever they were hiding. I now suspect they simply weren’t eating much at all. I noticed that even my chickens didn’t eat or drink their usual amount during the storm, and they were largely sheltered from the weather and had food and water readily available.

But once the storm cleared, the feeder was soon full of birds who soon emptied it. The chickens were the same. And it’s not just birds that are suddenly out and about. This morning a fox crossed the road in front of me as I drove off Roundtop, and it was carrying something large, I think a rabbit, as it did so. It seems that humans and beasts and fowl are all taking advantage of the clearing weather.

I took today's photo at Gifford Pinchot State Park, just a few miles from the cabin. Even though the weather has now cleared, you can expect more fall rain photos this week. It's once again gotten too dark to take photos during the week, so I have to take a week's worth on the weekends.

Warning: Photo not from today

The fall colors were shaping up nicely along the lane up to the cabin. Then this long nor’easter moved in, and it already feels as though the storm has been hanging around here forever. And it will be another two days before it probably clears out. The weather feels as raw as an open wound. About the only thing that would be less pleasant, I think, is an ice storm.

It’s dark and cold and rainy and windy. I could barely entice the dogs to leave the cabin this morning. The cats hadn’t left the bed by the time I headed for work, not even when I put food in their dishes. It’s 35 degrees, though I haven’t seen a single snowflake, which is a bit surprising. I’ve often seen it snow hard at 35 degrees. I guess it’s too wet for snow here, though just a bit further north there’s plenty of it.

Not even the feeder birds were making an appearance this morning. Everyone and everything is still hunkered down. I hope some good fall color will be left when the storm finally clears at the end of the weekend, but I’m not counting on it.

Snow in the air!

The morning is cold, dark and rainy. I had to wake the chickens up when I fed them this morning. By tonight, it appears I will get a few flakes of snow, assuming I will be awake when they fall. Northern Pennsylvania is forecast to see a lot more than a few flakes. (Take care on the roads to all of you who live up there).

Last night I was rushing around outside trying to get done some of the outside work I should have done this past weekend, when I was playing around outside instead. So I brought in the last of the plants and cleaned out the rain gutters. Tonight, I will finally have to turn on the heat. Next week it will warm up again, at least a little, but 3-4 four days of a cold rain with an easterly wind is too much to ride out without heat.

Today’s forecast for snow got me thinking about other snows in October here in southern PA. I remember getting some often enough, though I don’t recall when the first accumulating snow has fallen down here. It turns out that was 1.5" on October 19 in 1940, which is why I don’t remember it.

Traces of snow have fallen as early as October 9, and I even posted a few photos of snow on nearly green leaves a few years ago, though even that was in November after a long, warm fall that ended suddenly. This year I don’t feel quite ready for snow just yet, as I am also not yet accustomed to how early in the day the sun sets. I keep expecting another hour or so of daylight, and it simply isn’t there.

After a couple of busy and active days for both animals and birds, yesterday was unusually quiet. I saw only a few crows, and one of the ever-ubiquitous bluebirds. The foxes didn’t come calling, and the raccoons didn’t wake Baby Dog, which is something of a miracle. Yesterday the weather was already feeling raw and looking overcast, so perhaps the migrants and locals were already hunkering down for this storm. I think I will join them.

The colors of fall

Don't you just love the morning light in fall?

That's when I got today's photo. Heavy rain and an easterly wind are forecast for the next few days, and I'm afraid that will destroy the fall colors here before they fully reach their peak. There's nothing to be done about it if that happens, of course, and I am already trying to prepare myself for such an eventuality.

Last night I had a variety of visitors. The first and best was a visit by a saw-whet owl. I heard it, close to the cabin when I walked Baby Dog for the last time. She had to bark at it, of course. I went back inside to get a flashlight, but wasn't able to see it. They make the most bizarre noises, sometimes sounding a bit like a screech owl, sometimes sounding like wood being cut, sometimes sounding like two trees rubbing against each other and sometimes it's just a burble of weirdness. I wonder how many ghostly Halloween tales are really due to the sounds of these little guys?

At 4 a.m. the foxes started barking, followed by two raccoons in the bird feeder at 5 a.m. It sure hasn't been dull here at the cabin this week, that's for sure.

The deer are out again

One of the signs of fall that I’m not happy to see again is the deer rut. Deer are out and about all over the place. At night it’s particularly dangerous to be driving. Deer are more likely to be crossing the road, buck are chasing the doe, and they all seem to be looking for a party.

Last night a doe and a fawn from this year bounced across the road in front of me. I stopped and waited. I know this doe. I know she has a second fawn, and sure enough the second fawn finally realized mom and sibling were moving and rushed out of the brush to rejoin its family.

Over the years I’ve developed a few techniques to avoid hitting deer that has so far held me in good stead. I try to use my high beams on the car whenever I can, even if it’s not dark enough to actually need them. The high beams give me a wider view of the sides of the road and will often pick up the eye shine of deer long before they bounce across the road.

When I see a deer, which happens virtually every time I am out of the cabin after dark, I stop and wait for it to cross the road. After it crosses, I wait another few seconds. It’s amazing how many times there’s at least one deer more bringing up the rear.

My photo today is an old hickory tree that grows at the end of my lane. This year it’s producing a large amount of hickory nuts, which I am gathering as quickly as I can chase the squirrels away from it. Cracking hickory nuts takes a lot of work—I use a hammer on a stone. The results are worth it, though. The nuts taste like butterscotch. Try adding the pieces to cookies. You won’t be disappointed.

Overnight...

Fall is happening fast! On Saturday morning I was thinking that the autumn color change hadn’t moved very much over the past few days. Then on Sunday morning everything looked different, a lot different. A couple of cool nights moved the color change along quickly. Literally overnight the color change was dramatically further along. Here on the mountain, the peak of the color change is likely still a full week away, but today I don’t think it will be much further past that.

Fall is moving in other ways, too. This weekend I saw the first dark-eyed junco of the new season and the first white-throated sparrow. For a few moments I had a junco and a robin in the same little tree, giving me momentary hope that I might photograph the two together. Alas, that was not to be. Ruby-crowned kinglets are also moving through, and over the weekend I didn’t find any chipping sparrows, though I was seeing them by the dozens just a day or so before.

Overnight temperatures are now dropping into the lower 40’s, but the days still often reach 60 for about 90 seconds in the late afternoon before dropping again. The chill of mid-fall is here, and I’m enjoying the cooler temperatures. It’s odd, but fall this year seems to be moving more quickly than usual. Perhaps it’s because the summer wasn’t a hot one, so the temperatures didn’t have as far to fall as normal. I’m suddenly feeling the rush to do my outdoor fall chores and get the cabin and the chickens ready for winter. The shortening hours of daylight aren’t helping me with my chores. I always think I will get more done than I actually accomplish. I suppose it’s like this every year, though I’m suddenly feeling more rushed than I was just a week or so ago.

Soggy, foggy Friday

The title of today’s post says it all, really. It’s a foggy, soggy Friday here on Roundtop. The birds are in hiding. The fox hasn’t barked, the deer haven’t snorted, the raccoon isn’t harassing Baby Dog. It’s a quiet, fall morning, the kind where a mug of hot tea accompanies me as much for the warmth it brings to my hand as for the beverage itself.

Leaves fall slowly, often just one or two at a time. In another week or two the pace of that will turn into a continuous rain, but for now they waft to the ground slowly and as delicately as if they are as fragile as the finest china.

Perhaps when the sky clears, enough of the leaves will have fallen for me to catch my first glimpse of Nell’s Hill again. It won’t be long now. My view will soon make its appearance again.

Opening sky

The wind that blew through Roundtop yesterday brought down a good many of the leaves that had turned color. This morning, I have fewer leaves and also less fall color than I did 24 hours ago. The wind also knocked out power at the cabin for a bit. I wasn’t surprised by that. It happens all the time. This time of year it’s little more than a mild annoyance to wander around and reset all the clocks.

I love having even a tiny bit more open sky around the cabin. During midsummer I can’t see more than a pinprick of sunlight through the leafy canopy. I’d call the coverage about 99%. That’s great for keeping the cabin cool without air conditioning, but after a while I do start to feel somewhat boxed in.

Today, the canopy cover is down to perhaps 75%. I can’t yet see the mountain to the west of the cabin, but I can see part of the sky, the moon and even a few stars. It’s a big improvement, and I am seeing more birds and animals as a result, too.

The summer birds have mostly left the mountain by now. This morning I surprised a great blue heron as I drove past a pond. That may well be the last one I see here until spring. The chipping sparrows are flocking in groups of 20 or more. They will leave any day now. The winter residents have yet to arrive, though the first juncos could arrive as early as today, which marks my earliest record for them. More likely it will be next week or even the week after before I see one. I am ready for them, assuming I can keep that early morning raccoon out of the bird feeders.

Little visitor

For the past week or so, I’ve been awakened every morning at 5 a.m. by the sound of Baby Dog barking in outrage. The reason for this is shown in today’s photo. A raccoon has been visiting the decks of the cabin, raiding the bird feeder and scavenging for anything else it can find.

I’m impressed that the raccoon can tell time so well. My clocks don’t tell time as well as this raccoon.

Today is one of those weather-changing days on the mountain. The morning started off fairly warm but a northerly front with high winds is pushing through now and will result in much cooler temperatures by evening.

One result of the wind is that another group of leaves has fallen, which slightly improves the view outside the cabin. The leafy canopy that hides the sky is disappearing, bit by bit. The other night I could see the full moon, the first time I’ve had a break in the canopy since June.

A downside of the wind is that it’s brought down many of the autumn-colored leaves, so that this morning the mountain looks greener than it has for a week or so. Autumn leaf change is proceeding in stages this year, which lengthens the time I can see colored leaves, but diminishes the overall impact of them.

Overall, I see the staged transition of the autumn leaf color as a minor disappointment. But as ever, I really look forward to seeing the sky again.

Fall is in the air

Fall is moving fast at the cabin this week. One busy day, one rainy day and when the weather clears or I have a moment to look up and see what’s around me, everything is different again. I love that! It always surprises me. "When did that happen?" I ask myself. "How could I have missed it?" That’s how this week is shaping up for me.

Last night it was geese. Canada geese were moving south on a clear night, full moon. I heard the local geese fussing, long after dark, over on the new pond, which is a couple of hundred yards from the cabin. And then I heard a single goose overhead and the scattered fussing turned into loud and welcoming calls. A second goose soon called from the west and the chorus began again. Then I heard the distant sound of many geese, a large flock. The local geese really turned on the calling, and soon the big flock was closer and closer. I walked towards the nearest open sky, hoping to see them highlighted by the full moon.

There must have been a lot of them. I heard the swish when the group landed in unison on the pond. Baby Dog was surprised at so much noise after dark and had to bark, though she had no idea what she was barking at. I thought I heard a non-goose sound among them, but between Baby Dog and the honking Canada geese, I couldn’t hear it well enough to be sure.

This morning I went over to the pond at sunrise, hoping to catch a glimpse of the big flock, perhaps of an unusual duck. But by then they’d already gone, leaving only the local geese to await the next group of southbound visitors.

Got stinkbugs?

Here’s a question for everyone. Do you have stinkbugs? And I just don’t mean one here or one there. Do hundreds of them swam around screen doors this time of year? Do local TV stations run stories on the unusual numbers of stinkbugs? That’s what happens in this area, and I have no idea if the same thing happens in other places or not. I’d just like to know.

Now, I’m lucky when it comes to stinkbugs. I might see 2-3 on the side of the cabin. Sometimes one will find its way inside, though not often. Fortunately. Because stinkbugs do (wait for it) stink. The one in today’s photos is the brown marmorated stinkbug.

The brown ones are native to China and are believed to have arrived as stowaways in packing crates or some such. The first documented stinkbug of this type was in Allentown Penna. in October 2001. However, anecdotal reports go back to 2000 in New Jersey. They are considered an agricultural pest that can damage virtually any stage of vegetables and fruit. There’s also a green stink bug, which I believe is native to the southern U.S. Both the green and brown ones are called "shield bugs" because of their shape.

Anyway, I'd just like to know if other areas have their own stinkbug problem or not. I wait answers with bated breath.

Quieting

Last night I sat outside on a big boulder at the edge of my back forest and watched the sun set. The rock is a favorite spot of mine. Its shape makes a reasonably comfortable seat, and its location is a good one for watching the forest around me.

Between rainy weather and evening activities, more time than usual has passed since I’d watched the evening forest from this spot. Perhaps it’s been a week, perhaps 10 days. In any event, a lot has changed since I last sat there. The most noticeable change was the lack of birdsong.

Last night I heard and saw almost no birds, though I first went to the spot nearly an hour before sunset. A cardinal chipped pointedly, perhaps at me, from nearby. A blue jay screamed, a distant crow cawed at something. A titmouse twittered and a chickadee scolded. That was it. I didn’t hear the noisy robins or the bluebirds I knew were nearby. The wood thrush are long gone, and last night I didn’t hear a phoebe for the time since spring.

The quieting of the forest is one of the surest signs of fall and the approaching winter. It’s quite lovely to sit in the quiet and listen to the sound of silence in a quiet woods. But last night, more than I enjoyed the quiet, I missed the sound of the birds.

Is anyone home??

I don’t usually post multiple chicken photos in the same week, but I couldn’t resist this one. I usually let the girls out in the evenings while I’m doing the evening outside chores. It’s gotten cold enough now that I was moving plants and other things inside, so the girls were out of their pen longer than is usual.

As I was heading back towards the cabin with a handful of eggs, I find one of my chickens investigating the front deck. She looked as though she wanted inside. Or maybe she just wanted someone to come out and play with her. I’m not sure which. I thought it looked pretty funny, though.

Full speed into fall

Today it feels and looks like October. The sky is dark and overcast. A north wind rustles the forest and makes the dogs want to run and misbehave. Twilight lasts about 10 minutes now, and the sky no longer remains light long after sunset. Fall is tightening its hold.

Yesterday was a good day for migrating. I’m not talking just about raptors, though I suspect plenty of them were moving south, too. Around the cabin, I saw little birds, songbirds, in small groups of 6 or 12 heading south, dropping into the trees near sunset to roost. I found an eastern phoebe in one of Roundtop’s parking lots, the first time I’ve seen one in that spot all year. I suspect that bird was a migrant and not one of the summer residents. Most were sparrows, but as they didn’t alight near me, I never got a chance to identify them.

Spring and fall are such dynamic seasons, with changes in the air or on the ground visible daily. Stay inside for a day, and you miss a lot. That’s such a change from summer and winter, which both feel more static to me. It takes a while for me to catch up and get used to the speed of the season. I think both summer and winter can lull me into a false sense that time doesn’t move very much. Then fall or spring comes along, and the world moves in overdrive.

Inside - Outside

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about inside versus outside. I was reminded of the differences again last evening when I settled down for the night and turned out the light. Within a minute or so, the wind picked up, and the trees danced back and forth. I could see the action from the large window by my bedside. I could hear the wind through the open window. But I couldn’t feel the wind, so the result was a bit like watching a large-screen TV with a good sound system.

Even living in a cabin in the woods is not anything like living IN the woods. It’s true I can be in the woods faster than almost everyone just by stepping outside, but inside is still inside, and I have to go outside, just like everyone else, to really experience the outdoors.

I spend a lot of time around people who are rarely outside, let alone in the outdoors. Their experience of life is much different than mine, often different in more ways than I can even imagine. One difference I did discover the other day when the air conditioning went out in my office. Now, the day wasn’t hot, and the temperature inside went up to 80-82 degrees. I consider that warm but not terrible.

Well, you can not believe how people reacted. They unlocked our building’s security system and propped open the doors. They whined. They were dripping in sweat. I continued working on as always and didn’t really notice it much at all. But later, I realized that these were the same folks who are rarely outside, who go directly from their climate-controlled houses to their attached garages and their only outside time is the short walk from the office parking lot to the office.

How can the outdoors, the real Outdoors, be experienced and understood by folks like these as something beautiful and important? In their day to day lives, they are so far removed from the experience that I don’t even know where to begin to try. If they find 80 degrees so vastly uncomfortable, the number of days when they can safely and comfortably begin to experience the outdoors is already severely limited. And if it’s one thing I am convinced of, it’s that if people don’t have a good experience when they do go outside, they will be even less likely to repeat the experience. And since "those folks" vastly outnumber me, "those folks" are the ones whose opinions will matter when decisions about land use and forests are made.

So once again, I am left with questions and no answers. I do what I can, but I feel my voice is as small and as unheard as the sound of wind through the forest at night.

Wet leaves

Rain soaked Roundtop Mountain this weekend, a hard, chilly rain on Saturday heavy enough to wet through two raincoats. On Sunday the weather went from rain to sun and back again so many times that I couldn’t keep track.

The weather limited my forays into the woods. I prefer to avoid mud, as a rule. I’m fine with dirt and snow, but mud isn’t high on my list. The rain seemed to hurry along the ongoing drop of hickory nuts and acorns. Whenever a nut dropped onto a hard surface, the sound was loud enough to wake Baby Dog. She always woke up barking, no doubt expecting some attack by squirrels.

We had a quiet weekend, dogs lounging for most of the day, me brewing cups of hot tea and enjoying the solitude. Even the local birds were mostly in hiding. Perhaps we are all hunkering down in sort of a dry run for the winter ahead. Perhaps we were all just lazy. The quiet was nice, for a change.

The girls are all grown

I was awakened this morning at 5 a.m. by some serious chicken squawking. So I grabbed my flashlight and focused it through the bedroom window and on the chicken pen. The girls were all worked up about something, but I didn’t see anything bothering them. Then I put on my flip-flops and went outside to be sure. They were still unhappy but I didn’t find anything and went back to bed, not to sleep, but I went back to bed.

The girls likely did see something, probably a raccoon or one of the foxes. Since I’ve had them I’ve discovered that chickens are a lot smarter than I expected. I’ve also learned to interpret the many noises they make. The noise they made this morning was the "big, bad something is after us" noise.

They also have a call for the old, stray cat that sometimes wanders through. That’s the "I see you and I don’t like you, but I can take you" call.

When I get home in the evenings, I usually let the chickens out of their pen. They scratch their way around the cabin and up the driveway. Sometimes they come when I call them back if I have food in my hand. Sometimes I have to pick them up. A couple are starting to think scratching in the woods is more fun than scratching in the driveway, and I have to keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t wander too far or out of sight.

The chickens are also better flyers than I expected. That’s one of the things they love to do when I let them out. They fly up the driveway or onto a low branch. Then they sit there looking all proud of themselves.

Right now I'm getting a lot of eggs from the girls. That will slow down or even stop for a while during the winter. And their evening woodland forays will end before long, as it will be dark when I get home. I haven't told them about that yet.

A bounty of grapes

Wild grapes, also called fox grapes, are looking pretty ripe on Roundtop right now. It looks as though they will be especially abundant this year. In fact, the year is looking like a good one for various nuts of just about all kinds—especially hickory nuts and acorns, which are regularly and loudly falling onto the roof of the cabin right now.

The wild grapes native to the eastern U.S. are the starting stock for Concord grapes, I’ve read, and when I look at these tiny purple bunches of them, I can see that. And tiny is what they are, though the photo makes them look larger. A fox grape is about the size of a baby pea.

I’ve been told that there’s a poisonous grape called Canadian Moonseed that looks very similar and has much the same range. However, you can tell the two apart by the seed. The moonseed has a seed shaped like a crescent moon (hence its name). Fox grapes have a round seed. I’ve never found the poisonous variety here on Roundtop, though I don’t go around checking every plant I see either.

Eating moonseed grapes can be fatal, so if you are inclined to eat fox grapes, I would check a seed in every bunch to make sure you’ve got the right ones. Apparently, the moonseed grapes have a "rank" flavor, too, and why anyone would continue to eat something that’s rank is beyond me. Fox grapes are not rank.

Mostly, I don’t eat fox grapes, though I have tasted them. Sometimes they are great, sometimes they don’t seem to have a lot of flavor. Animals love them, and I’ve found it’s uncommon to get to a ripe bunch before some bird or, well, fox. They look pretty, though, don’t they? The forest provides berries in the spring and now that it’s fall, the animals will eat their fill of fox grapes. The forest has its own kind of harvest season.

So how do you celebrate fall?

Fall is sneaking in on Roundtop Mtn., one leaf at a time, one plant at a time. It reminds me a bit of a stray cat that’s looking to become a house cat. Each day it’s a bit more bold, a bit further in the door.

Today, the red of the rose hips caught my eye as I wandered around the woods. Rose hips are used in a variety of things, from jams to teas to oils. All of the recipes sound too labor intensive for me to bother with. My idea of food preparation usually involves as little preparation as possible, except for coffee, where I never take shortcuts.

Will today be the last warm day of the year? It could be. Thunderstorms are predicted for later today but once the storms are through, the temperature is to drop about 10 degrees and spend at least the next week somewhere shy of 70 degrees during the day. In celebration of the season’s change, I am wearing my sandals for the last time before they get put away until springtime.

I suppose you could say that wearing sandals is a funny way of celebrating the equinox and the new season, but there you have it. Our ancestors built Stonehenge and aligned giant rocks by hand just so, and I’m wearing sandals. That doesn’t seem like an advancement, does it?

From my point of view, it’s an important step to put away the summer clothing that must be worn during summer’s heat and move on to clothing that’s sturdier and comfortable and can be layered or not as the day allows. So let our ancestors have Stonehenge, I’m getting out the fall sweaters.

Among the last of the season

As I was away from the cabin while I was hawkwatching, now that my routine is returning to normal again, I am aware of how much has changed around the mountain in just a few days. The number of leaves that are yellow increased quite a bit, though the yellowing is still mostly in the smaller plants of the forest understory. The trees are still largely greenish, though more and more are starting to look, if not yet yellow, at least no longer summery green.

Even with this changing season, some plants are still flowering. The most profuse around Roundtop right now is the spotted touch me not, perhaps better known elsewhere as jewelweed. This is a plant that is native to North America, but has now also traveled elsewhere, notably England and Europe, which is somewhat novel, given the number of non-native European-based plants that now thrive here in North America.

Jewelweed is not the only flower I’m seeing right now, though every day I see fewer. Here and there I find a single daisy, a withering blue or white aster. Goldenrod blooms, as does Queen Anne’s Lace, but the season of flowers is passed and today’s equinox marks the start of new one.
So while I have a few flowers yet remaining around the mountain, I will enjoy them. Soon they will all be gone, and it will be six months before the new ones make their debut.