Dark and dreary

It was so dark and dreary this morning that I was late getting up.  I kept waiting for some semblance of daylight to appear, and it never did.  A black cloud hung heavily over the mountain, so even at 7 a.m. I needed a headlamp for a little while, and Doodle the rooster didn’t crow until almost 7:30 a.m.

The rain, while not heavy, was cold and the breeze blew little slivers of it onto my face, stinging it.  Even the Shelties were happy to turn around and head back to the cabin this morning and that has to be a first!  Birds were hunkered down in whatever shelter they could find, but a great horned owl was still calling just before 8 a.m. 

By afternoon, the day improved, and the sky soon filled with turkey vultures and a pair of red-tailed hawks.  The little birds came out of hiding too.  It is, after all, November and this is how November is supposed to be.  Or even colder, though it’s still sort of early enough in the month to let that pass for now.  Here on my mountain, November is a transition month.  It can be a leaf-less repeat of October, or it can be winter.  So far, this November is milder than average, but with the coldest part of the month still ahead, it’s too soon to complain about just how mild it’s going to be.

Instead, on this chilly and blustery morning, the dogs got a bit of a walk.  When we returned to the cabin, we had a fire in the fireplace, and I had a cup of hot chocolate, and that was enough to scare away the chill. 

Leaves falling down

This is the week of leaves falling down at Roundtop.  Leaves are everywhere, floating down like rain and crunchy underfoot.  So far no rain has dampened them or turned them into a sodden mess, the first step of decaying into new forest soil.

For the first time since May I can see the outline of Nell’s Hill to the west.  I can not yet see the porch light of my nearest western neighbor, who lives a mile or so down the mountain, across the narrow valley, across Beaver Creek, over the swampy area and starting up the next mountain.  When I can see those lights, I’ll know winter is approaching and that all the leaves are down.

So far this season, I have seen little signs of waterfowl migration.  I would have expected that to have started by now, but not even migrating geese have been spotted.  The local geese honk and fly over on their nightly rounds, pretending or perhaps thinking about migrating.  The instincts are there for them, even if they don’t head south.  A quick trip to Pinchot Lake this weekend saw it empty of any waterfowl, except for seven geese.  Those were certainly local birds, too.  Migration is late, perhaps a result of the warmer weather this week.

So this past weekend was a very nice one for the time of year, a tad warmer than it’s been and with no rain.  The photos with today’s post were all taken this weekend.  You can see that the brilliant falls colors are gone.  The leaves are not yet faded into all browns, but the drama of the season is past. It was a good time for enjoying the weather.  Not many more days this year can I expect the weather to be so balmy or so conducive to outdoor work.  I’ll take these lovely fall days however I find them.

Falling leaves

It’s official.  The peak of fall colors is past and the leaf drop has begun.  Of course, a hard rain last night and strong breeze today will push things along faster than is typical but that’s how it goes.  This is the week when I wade ankle deep through the forest’s leaves that litter my porch and deck.  I sweep the leaves every evening but for at least a week it does no good. Every day there are more.

One year I refused to sweep the leaves for a week, and I was soon knee deep in them on my front porch.  Having tried that once, now I sweep them daily until the leaf drop is over.  What I like to do is to study the leaves a bit and to name the species of trees they come from.  In my forest, white oak, red oak, tulip poplar, hickory and American beech are the most common species. I also find a few others, like chestnut oak, sassafras and wild cherry.  Sometimes I find an American chestnut, but these are likely from a younger tree that has not yet succumbed to the disease that devastated this species.


The leaves are blown from all over, who knows where, really, so if I find an unusual leaf, trying to then locate the tree it came from is pretty much impossible.  That doesn’t stop me from looking. Sooner or later I will be successful with one of them.

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.

Colors

Fall color is near its peak here on Roundtop Mtn., though some areas are still pretty green.  The low-lying valleys and gullys may even be at the peak of fall color.  With the first frost possible on Sunday night, leaves not yet at peak soon will be.  Some leaves are already falling and beginning to litter the lane up to my cabin, but the big fall of leaves is still about two weeks away.

At the moment I am hoping I can continue to dodge acorns, beech nuts and especially walnuts and hickory nuts that are falling all around me.  I would not want to get hit by a walnut seedpod, that’s for sure. Those things are bigger than golf balls.  I hear all manner of nuts land on the roof, the car (so far no dents), rocks and the lane itself.  Often, I can hear them crash through a layer or so of leaves before they hit the ground, but not always.  So far, I can report no injuries to me or the dogs, but we have all had at least a couple of near misses over the past week.

I have seen the first junco of the new season—exactly one.  It sped away, flashing its white outer tail feathers.  That sighting on Monday is still the only one I’ve seen.  The late sunrise and early sunset may be a factor here.  I have yet to get the fall color photo I want because the sun isn’t high enough to be where I want it to be by the time I leave the cabin.  And I can’t get in the cabin and change shoes after work fast enough to catch the evening light on weekdays now.  I simply will have to wait for the weekend and then hope the leaves are not already disappearing.  I am sure that by next weekend, not much of the color will be left.   Winter IS coming.

Changing

Sunrise at Roundtop.  October 8 2015

It won’t be long, another 7-10 days, and the leaf color at Roundtop will be at or near its peak.  Looking at the trees today, that’s a little hard to believe.  The leaves are changing slowly, with still more green than color.  The morning light is fully that of October’s golden rays, though.

I wouldn’t say the leaf change is late.  Timing seems pretty normal at the moment.  I think it’s more than I’m still in the summer mindset of being used to having greenery around me, and the autumn changes isn’t yet far enough along to jog me into a fall mode. And yet I know the prime color season and the first frost can’t be far away.

Perhaps it’s because I haven’t yet seen a junco or a white-throated sparrow to officially mark a new turning in the year’s spinning.  A friend, further east of here, has already had the little sparrow at his feeders, so I know it won’t be long before the new tribe of sparrows arrives.  Now that summer’s ubiquitous chipping sparrows have left, the mountain is rather free of little birds.  For the moment, the mountain is dominated with medium-sized birds, like bluebirds and blue jays and the larger Canadian robins that arrive after the local ones have headed further south. With the leaf canopy thing, various woodpeckers seem more prevalent, but likely it’s just that I can see them better again.

So I’m waiting to be kicked into fall. I just don’t quite feel it yet. Maybe next week.

Around Roundtop, signs of fall are emerging almost every day.  Mostly I see the change in the smaller plants—the trees have yet to show much color.  Grasses and annual plants are turning shades of purple or red.  Dry weather has caused some leaves to fall, littering the ground with brown leaves but not the colors of fall. The western mountain shows some hints of color change in individual trees or branches, but I have to look close to see even that.

The forest around my cabin is thinning out, though.  I can see deeper into the woods, and I am ever hopeful for when I can first spot the outline of the mountain to my west.

In the early evening or sometimes in the early mornings I hear the calling of the great horned owls.  I hear both the higher pitched call of the larger female and the lower call of the smaller male.  Sometimes I think I hear a third owl but I can’t be sure of that.  It is still probably a bit early for their courtship, which begins in October, though that month is now but a few days away. Perhaps they are thinking about nesting, though.

Great horned owls are monogamous and famous for fiercely defending their territories.  All the years I’ve lived at Roundtop I’ve heard them calling. It’s only been rare times I’ve seen them, even when the calling is close to the cabin and I try to spot them with my headlamp.  After all this time, it’s possible but not very likely it’s the same pair.  They live an average of 13 years in the wild but the record in the wild is 28 years. I haven’t lived here that long yet, but I’m getting close!  Likely at least one of the birds I hear is a descendant of the owl pair I heard when I first moved here.

First snow!

Last evening brought the first snow of the fall. It started as drizzle in the late afternoon, moved into sleet for a few minutes and ended as snow. Most of it melted as soon as it touched the ground, but this morning a few protected spots still had a few spots of it.

Snow on the chicken coop

Today the temperature is much colder and much windier, a sure sign that winter is approaching. This weekend I will move the chicken pen next to the cabin and turn the heat on. I am past the point where just the fireplace will do. 

Still, I love this cooler air and chilly nights. Summer just feels too easy to me. Late fall has an urgency to it that the summer months, with their endless warms days, just can’t match.

Falling

Leaves are falling constantly.  Sometimes they fall one by one, sometimes they fall in a papery shower.  At least half are down now, which means I can begin to see the mountain a mile or so to my west again.  The mountain is not completely revealed, but I don’t need to know where it is to see it anymore.

Wind and cold temperatures from a nor’easter are gone now, so the mountain has returned to more seasonal levels.  I was forced to use my fireplace when the wind was blowing. My cabin stays warm enough with a little help from sunlight, but the wind stripped away any of the day’s heat.  Even so, the cats cuddle on my bed like another blanket—warmer than most of the real blankets currently covering my bed. 

The chickens don’t seem to mind the current weather, but the shortened hours of daylight brings ever fewer eggs for me. I’ve already had to stop selling the eggs, as I’ve dropped from 3 dozen a week to no more than a dozen now.  I hope I will get enough over the winter to keep me in eggs, but sometimes the girls stop laying all together.  That’s especially true if the winter is a gloomy one.  It will likely be late February or even March before egg production resumes on anything like a normal level again. My hens are now more than 2 years old, too, and even in spring their production will likely be less.  Doodle, my rooster, is probably going to be 5 years old, and I’m guessing it won’t be too long before I will need another rooster.  He’s very protective and more than earns his keep.

Morning dramas

First, let me report that I did not enhance the color of today’s photo in any way.  Nor did I adjust the brightness, increase the contrast or any of those other things.  This is exactly the way I saw it, and the camera captured it. 

For the most part, the brilliant colors of fall are gone.  The pretty colors either blew away earlier this week or are turning brown, well past the bright yellows and reds of just a week ago.  But this morning the sun rose through a thin grey veil of fog and doused the mountain with shades so intense it hurt to look.  That’s the sun’s glory you are seeing, not the season’s colors.

Dawn comes late these last days before the fall time change, and my ability to take photos is suffering for it.  It’s dark enough that I still hear the great horned owls calling as I leave the cabin.  The only day birds up are the crows, though this morning, shortly after I took this photo, a gang of them found a hawk to mob.  It had taken refuge in a small tangled tree, but the mob was having none of it, gathering as in the Alfred Hitchcock movie and calling for reinforcements from all corners.
This morning had an unusual amount drama.  Days pass with little new to see, then all of a sudden the crows are out and the dawn turns the entire mountain as bright than a new penny.  Today I was just lucky enough to see both.

Autumn chill

The autumn colors have already faded, victims of the unrelenting breeze these last few days. The leaves that are left are more brown than colorful. As fall goes, the color this year wasn’t bad, but it sure didn’t last long. Often, the colors remain vibrant and firmly attached to their trees for a week. This year, the color was especially nice on Sunday and went downhill every day past that.

I cannot yet see Nell’s Hill, the mountain to the west of my cabin, but I can see one edge of Flat Hill, the one to my northwest. The view of the sky is now much more open than it was, and that late summer claustrophobic feeling I sometimes get has gone away, too.

The mornings are chilly, and once or twice I used my fireplace for an hour or so. Today, the temperature is no warmer than before, but the wind was calm this morning, so the cabin felt warm enough even without the fire. At least to me—the cats are taking up a lot more room on my bed than they were a month ago. Suddenly, I am their best friend again. Funny how that works.

Colors amid the gray

The fall color show is coming along nicely, whenever I get a break from the rain and clouds long enough to take a look at them.  That’s October here on Roundtop—gorgeous weather surrounded by rain, fog and big dark clouds racing across the sky.  The weather is very changeable, too.  Don’t wait to go outside when the weather is gorgeous, because in an hour or less it will be different.

A nor’easter just glanced my way, though this morning it is slow to clear out.  The rain has stopped but the clouds remain. Today’s photo is one I took two days ago, in a brief moment before the view was hidden.  This October I worry that the leaves will fall before I a chance to see the peak of the colors.  So though this view just past sunrise is not yet at the color peak, it may be the best I get to see. 

A fair number of the leaves already swirl around my feet.  The distance I can see into the forest is at least double what it was in midsummer.  That’s still not enough to see this mountain from the back of my cabin yet, though that won’t be but a few days or a week from now.

I see deer and wild turkey every day now.  The deer seem ever tamer, though neither me nor my neighbors feed them or do anything to encourage them. Likely, they were simply in the same spots all summer when the underbrush was too thick for us to see them. Now that the underbrush is going or gone, perhaps they still think they are hidden. They even ignore the dogs, though calm Sparrow is better tolerated than my wild Skye, who is never still a moment. I would almost not be surprised one day to find Sparrow and the old doe touching noses. So far not yet.

Gray day

unamed lane near Beaver Creek, Monaghan Township, York County PA

The fall color is coming along nicely at Roundtop, though unfortunately I have yet to see it at its best. Since Sunday, the days have been foggy, raining or gray, diluting the color of the leaves.  It’s not the interesting or bright kind of fog either.  It’s the dull, gray and dark kind of fog.  We’ve all seen at least a few photos of a gorgeous fall tree shrouded in a lovely fog. 

My gray and foggy days are not like those. Mine are the kind where the chickens go to roost at 4:30 because they think it’s getting dark.  It’s the kind where I hear the first great horned owl at 5 p.m., and it’s the kind that washes out the color on the trees. So, you (and I) will have to wait for sunny weather or at least that bright kind of fog to see any intense fall colors. Maybe tomorrow. Or the next day. I only hope the leaves don’t fall before that happens.

I have thus far been able to avoid turning on the heat or my fireplace.  However, my goal of making it to November 1 without doing so appears to be in doubt. It’s one thing to ignore cool weather for a day or so, but I will shortly be heading into a spate of days with temperatures near freezing at night and days bumbling around the mid-50’s.  I might not make it past the second or third day of that without giving in.

Nell's Hill, early fall

Nell's Hill with the start of fall color

Fall color in the forest is advancing nicely.  A few days ago I thought the leaves were mostly unchanged, but after a few nights of cool temperatures, that has changed. Now, the fall color is noticeable, though most trees are still green.   Some of the trees that have turned color are very far advanced and are even dropping their leaves already.
 

Although I can’t yet see this mountain from my cabin, at sunset I can now see where the bright sky ends.  As that is where the outline of the mountain begins, I know the mountain will reappear at my western windows soon. Slowly, ever so slowly, the holes in the forest’s leafy canopy grow larger, and my view of the sky overhead of my abode is opening, a little bit at a time.

This weekend brought a small taste of the cold weather ahead. I didn’t have a frost but it was close, and I suspect the lower-lying areas at the foot of the mountain might have had one. Higher up on the mountain, where I live, temperatures are more moderate than down lower.  The average date of the first frost here is October 13, so that’s not far off. 

It’s cold enough now that I’ve added more straw to the chicken pen, and I find that several cats suddenly want to sleep with me.  I didn’t turn my heat on this weekend when the outside temperature dropped, though it was chilly enough that I was tempted to. I decided to wait it out, knowing that this early cool snap would moderate in a few days. 

Autumn's progress

The autumn color change is underway in a few areas on Roundtop Mtn.  In the lower, cooler spots along a stream or a run, gold and yellow leaves are beginning to be evident.  Higher up, where I live, the trees are still green.

Some leaves, though not many, have already fallen, decorating the mountain lane with a bit of color. As yet, this is not enough to open up the leafy canopy and extend my visibility.  Leaf fall is often a slow process, especially at the beginning. However, I’ve had nearly 6 months of studying every tiny hole in the canopy around my cabin, so by now I know it well and am ever vigilant for the slightest change.

I am at least 3 weeks away from the main leaf fall and probably longer.  When I first moved to the cabin, some 20 years ago, the main leaf fall occurred in late October.  But as climate change has progressed, it now happens in early November, once as late as November 11 but more reliably around November 5-7, at least for the last few years.  Still, by late October the canopy is much opened again, just from the leaves that fall earlier than most of them.

As the season progresses, leaf fall is lot like a continuous snow flurry, cascading off the trees to cover the forest floor until they are shin-deep in some places. On a day when many leaves drop, walking through the forest is a lot like walking in a falling snow.  Falling leaves make a gentle rustling sound, best heard when surrounded by a forest.  The effect is not the same with just one or a few trees.  When the whole forest is “molting” the sound is similar to the sound of wind through the trees in summer, but with a drier tone.  I love to walk through the forest and feel the leaves falling all around me, making that lovely fall sound.  It’s best heard on a day without wind, but as long as the breeze is a mild one, I can still hear the leaves when they fall.

Fall Ruminations

Kralltown Rd., Washington Township, York County, Pennsylvania, September 15, 2014

Fall is beginning to make an appearance around my cabin. The trees still look green, but the annual foliage on the forest floor is beginning to show signs of color. Poison ivy turns first, and a few of the other plants are beginning to follow suit. Nothing is very pretty or dramatic yet; the change is only just beginning—greens fading towards a dull yellow or orange. The big trees are the last to turn color and that still won’t happen for a few weeks.

This week should be the big Broad-winged Hawk migration through southern Pennsylvania. More northerly hawkwatches are already starting to report daily counts above 1000 hawks each day. Likely in this area, the big push will be tomorrow or Thursday. The birds won’t reach the U.S.- Mexico border for another 8-10 days. And it will be the better part of a week before they arrive in Veracruz MX. By the time they get down there, the flocks (or "kettles" as we hawkwatchers call those flocks) could hold tens or thousands and even hundreds of thousands of birds.

I’m noticing the chillier nights, which make for great sleeping weather, as long as the animals don’t take all the room on the bed, which they often attempt to do. The big question I wrestle with each year is when should I "migrate" my houseplants from outdoors back inside the house? The Christmas and Easter cactus are the easiest ones to gauge, as I try not to bring them back inside until they have set buds. My houseplants do best when they are not in the house but outside. Sometimes I think they are only just barely being kept alive inside during the winter. So I tend to wait until the last minute, or even the last second, before bringing them inside. I know the time for them to be outside is soon ending. I just don’t know which day it will be.

Dreaming of fall on a summer's day

Southeast and warm winds really put a halt to fall bird migration over the long holiday weekend. At least that was the result at Roundtop; I haven’t checked other areas. So instead I did some outside chores around the cabin, notably cleaning out and moving the chicken pen. It should be okay in its current spot until it’s time to move the pen next to the cabin—the girls’ winter quarters.

For now, summer is still here, though I like to think it’s the season’s last, longest stretch before cooler temperatures appear. Sometimes seasons, like people, hold on tightest just before they let go. So, a week of practically the hottest temperatures of the summer is not unexpected before the season turns.

As I find fall often the "best" season of the year, it can’t come too soon for me. It’s the season when the air conditioner is removed from the window and when the sweatshirts return to my closet. The nights are chilly and need a comfy quilt. Best of all, the leaves turn color and soon fall, leaving me with a nice view out the back of the cabin again for the first time in six months. But that’s still a ways away. For now, I’ll settle for the low humidity of fall and daily temperatures that don’t top 80. It won’t be long now.

A forest walk

I’ve noted several times that the autumn colors this fall aren’t very exciting.  This weekend saw many more leaves fall, though the ones that are left put on a bit of a show, a last gasp if you will.  The sky was a mix of clouds and sun, which didn’t help bring out the colors, but I’m grateful that it wasn’t raining, so I did get to enjoy what colors there were.

I walked down through the woods along Beaver Creek, passing the spot were I worked with the kids at adventure camp. Then instead of following the woods road, I detoured into the woods and walked where no path or road exists. I enjoy wandering this way, though it’s only just now possible again.  In summer, the undergrowth makes such wanderings difficult.  When I can’t see my feet, tripping is inevitable and sometimes dangerous.  Now that the area has had a good freeze or two, the undergrowth has disappeared, and wandering holds fewer dangers.  Leaves covering holes or depressions can still be an issue, but I can find those most of the time.

This time I wandered along the banks of the creek for half a mile or more, finding a deep hole that I’d never noticed before—deep enough for native brook trout or at least a fish larger than a minnow.  I didn’t see any, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there.

Up at my cabin, the forest is again pretty open, not the way it will be in another week or two, but open enough that I no longer am living inside a green bubble, open enough that I can see the sky and open enough that if I stand in the exact right spot, I can see the porch light of my “neighbor” at the base of the mountain to the west of me, a good mile away.

I’ll be posting more photos from this walk throughout the week. Now that we’ve changed the clocks, photos are limited to those taken on the weekends only.

Walking in the woods with leaves

Taking pretty fall photos this year is more challenging than I’m used to.  I have to take photos shortly after sunrise or just before sunset to tease out much color.  For most of the day, the leaves simply look dingy, which is not typical at all.  Most years, sunset or sunrise light is too strong, and a gray day shows off the colors better.  Not this year.

Yesterday’s late afternoon light made even dingy trees look a lot prettier and more orange than I expected.  And what better color than orange to post on Halloween?

This year’s leaves will soon all be on the ground. Today a bit of a breeze is helping to bring them down. I notice that even a slight shift in the wind direction brings a new flurry of leaf drop.  Today, the direction is SSE, a direction I haven’t had for a couple of weeks, and that seems to be all that is needed to speed up the leaf fall.  Today, the wind speed is no stronger than it’s been for a week or more, but the wind direction is different than the more normal NW or westerly direction. That change means the wind strikes the leaves from a different angle, and for some leaves that’s all it takes to bring them down.

Walking through a forest when the leaves are falling is fun.  I can feel and hear the leaves dropping all around me and on me.  I have to resist the automatic urge to bat them away, like I would with an insect.  Instead, I walk into the falling leaves, feel them light on my jacket, tickle my face and then crunch underfoot.  A thousand leaves are falling all at once, and you need a whole forest to get the full effect.  Now’s the time to try it.    

Time's a wasting

The only way I can make the dull fall colors of 2013 look bright is to take a photo when the sun is low during the first shining of the day. In most years, early morning light on the mountain to my west would look almost too bright, nearly hurting my eyes. Not this year.  Maybe winter will be more interesting.

And that reminds me—I’m going to have to buy new snowshoes.  The plastic on my 15-year old snowshoes finally broke and doesn’t appear to be repairable.  I haven’t had enough snow the past several years to even use my snowshoes except once or twice.  But I know how things go.  The very year I don’t have snowshoes I will get one of those rare, four foot snows and will desperately need them.  Rather than deal with that, it’s simply easier to buy a new pair. Buying a new pair is just as likely to keep a big snow away, too, which is also how things go. I’ve heard this called the snowblower effect, too. If you buy a snowblower, it’s almost certain there won’t be any snow the first year you have it.  But if you don’t have a snowblower—expect a blizzard.

As you can tell, now that the leaves are falling, I’m already looking ahead to the winter. My bird feeders are in place and are used by the local chickadees, titmice and nuthatches.  I’m already starting to plan how to winterize the chicken pen, and I’m picking up and putting away various things around the cabin that have been outside since April—chairs, a bench, that kind of thing.  I’ve already seen snowflakes once this year—briefly for about five minutes or less.  The next batch of those are likely to be more sustained and then are likely to be followed by actual flurries, perhaps then a dusting and before I know it, there will be snow on the ground.

I’ve been fooled before by autumns that seem to last forever.  I can get lulled into thinking that this season will last for at least another week or two, only to suddenly come face-to-face with winter’s first wrath. This is not the time to procrastinate!