OCTOBER EARLY FALL

The sun is warm as mid-morning advances. Some yellows begin to color witch hazel leaves masking their small but fragrant blooms. So sad the glory of season’s last blooming, unlike the first blossoms of spring, is lost among the dying.

 Cherry trees and nut trees, walnut, hickory, butternut also glow yellow in my morning sun, but this year many ash are succumbing to a new borer and next spring will not leaf out. Each breath of wind brings down more sere, brown and lifeless leaves from my ash. Its shade on my deck will be sorely missed come summer next but even worse the death of so many forest ash, for many years the woods will be scarred by their loss.  

Seems but yesterday the white pine began to brown older needles in response to dark’s daily lengthening. Around the equinoxes, vernal or autumnal, the day’s duration changes most rapidly. In summer and winter, the solstices the changes are the slowest. Soon a light brown mulch of needles will cover bare beneath the trees and tinge only lightly brown the green  grass.