Two weeks ago, much of the landscape was still deep, late-summer green. Now, ash trees are gold and burgundy, a few maples and dogwoods are orange, or red.
Cottonwoods and catalpas and sweet gums and shagbark hickories are yellowing. Grape vines and nettles are bleached with age. Locust leaves drizzle steadily to the undergrowth.
The serviceberry trees and black walnut trees are almost bare. And wandering scarlet poison ivy and Virginia creeper outline the changes.
But summer is not completely gone.
A few rose of Sharon and Japanese honeysuckle blossoms hold on. The last jumpseeds still jump when my fingers stroke them.
Late goldenrod is still in bloom, along with white snakeroot and the small white asters and the violet heart-leafed asters. Milkweed pods are open, their silk shining in the low October light.
The zigzag goldenrod, orange jewelweed and the blue-stemmed goldenrod still blossom at the far side of their season.
Cicadas still call. Dragonflies still hunt along the river banks. Monarch butterflies and painted ladies, cabbage whites and swallowtail butterflies sometimes still come by on warmer days.
This is Bill Felker with Poor Will’s Miami Valley Almanack. I’ll be back again next week with more notes on the seasons. In the meantime, keep track of just one or two trees. See when they lose their laves from year to year.
