The Woods in Late Summer: Part I

I usually don’t go out in the woods during the summer, because it’s unpleasantly hot and I worry about ticks. I went up to the woods three times in the late summer this year, and almost regretted it. As expected, the woods were close and humid and terribly buggy. On two of the walks I managed to attract swarms of mosquitoes and deer flies that stayed with me for the entire trek. The flies would buzz by my ears every few minutes. And if I paused to take a picture, every bug in the whole forest knew it and attacked en masse.

But there were some enjoyable things about my walks. For one thing, I snapped a picture of the approach to the scenic overlook. Now I have pictures of the woods in all four seasons.

Approach

What was interesting to me was how many signs of fall could already be seen, even though the walks took place before the official start of the season. The tiny gardens were filling up with autumnal brown leaves.

Tiny Garden with Leaves

Tiny Garden with Fall Leaves

In other places yellow leaves were already brightening the ground.

Yellow

Here I snapped a picture because I thought that the pines needles filled in the rock crevices in a pretty way.

pine1

Pine Needles on the Rock

But there’s something else to notice in the picture. On the right you can see that the pine was starting to turn yellow. All of the pines were starting to turn yellow.

pine2

Pine Turning Yellow

The first few years that we lived here among the pines, I would see the pines yellowing and think they were getting sick. Then they would get miraculously better, until the next year, that is.  Eventually the light bulb went off in my head. Duh! It’s fall for pines, too!

And there were nuts of many kinds on the ground, including some that I didn’t recognize. They will have to be subjects of an investigation someday. My favorite, though, was this colorful acorn.

Colorful Acorn

Colorful Acorn

Nothing says fall like acorns on the ground!

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