First Signs of Fall

One clump of bright orange berries and one very yellow leaf do not in themselves constitute the beginning of the fall season. But as I rode my bicycle to the labyrinth today, I encountered the bright yellow leaf on the road in the path of the bicycle. It was the first yellow leaf that I have seen this year. The clump of ripened berries was nearby on the trail to Hart Lake.

There are other signs of the approaching fall season as well. The days are quite noticeably shorter. The sun rises later and sets earlier, and the angle at which its light enters and leaves the valley is altogether different from what it was in mid-June. The flowers in the garden are obviously on the decline, most of them gone already to seed. The days are a bit cooler and the nights have turned quite chilly...nights for fleece!

There are still some birds around the village, but I think a good portion of them have already begun their trek south for the winter. Their numbers have diminished. If we could only convince our pesky bears that now would be as good a time as any for them to hibernate! They are having no part of it. We awoke early this morning to see the big male bear(we are very familiar with this bear) sitting on the porch of Lodge 3 with the garbage can turned upside down over its head. A bear like this can't be told anything!

And now that it is beginning to be fall, I will very soon attempt to put on this site some of the many pictures I have taken of Holden during what seems to me to be a very short summer. (You have to understand that for a Floridian, a summer lasts 6 months.)

Stay tuned.