Warm and breezy at sunrise. One katydid is still calling, as if reluctant to see the end of what could be the katydids’ last big party night of the year. Two yellow walnut leaves land on my laptop.
fall foliage
Soft sunlight through high atmospheric haze. Dew drips from the roof. The forest glows orange and yellow as spring peepers call from the leaf litter.
Sun through thin clouds at mid-morning. A suppressed burble of wren-song from the woods’ edge. Yellow leaves festoon the reddening stiltgrass in the yard.
The coldest morning of the autumn so far, but no frost. Pileated woodpeckers yammer in the distance as the sun climbs through golden leaves toward the moon’s thin grin.
More clouds than sun, with walnut trees undressing in the wind, and the leaves on the porch turning over like restless sleepers. The periodic bang of a walnut landing on the back roof is loud as a gunshot.
Sunny and still at mid-morning, with backlit leaves at the woods’ edge looking even yellower than they are. The throb of a distant engine. Squirrel teeth chiseling open a walnut. A common yellowthroat pipes up.
Overcast and still. The bracken in the yard has all turned brown and the stillgrass is reddening, revealing the dark green leaves of a new volunteer spicebush.
A gloomy morning, except for the wren: the dull mechanical songs of the quarry, the low cloud ceiling, the cold breath of autumn making leaves tremble on their stems.
Off and on rain and the sporadic crashes of falling walnuts. I watch a yellow tulip tree leaf tumbling down, end over end, the air slipping through its four Mickey Mouse fingers.
After all-night rain, most of the stiltgrass in the meadow has fallen over, and many of the white snakeroot heads are bent low. And even as some leaves on the trees are turning yellow, others have never looked so bright green.
Overcast and cool, with showers of yellow black walnut leaflets in the slightest breeze. A gray squirrel climbs a small tree next to the lilac, presses its snout to each of three walnuts, and climbs back down.
Daybreak comes in a lull between storms. An orange leaf spirals down at the woods’ edge as thunder rumbles off to the east, and now again in the west. A green stink bug crawls under the arm of my green chair.
At least half the leaves on the walnut trees in my yard have turned yellow now, still glistening from a shower at dawn. The red-eyed vireo who was calling then is still going strong three hours later.
Overcast and cool. Here and there, black walnut leaves are beginning to yellow. A deer foraging at the woods’ edge breaks into a trot to try to escape her flies.