Blog Schedule

I post on Monday with an occasional random blog thrown in for good measure. I do my best to answer all comments via email and visit around on the days I post.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Signs of Fall

Our mornings have been unusually cool for our area of Texas. We don't normally drop into the low and mid 40s until November. Not that we're complaining (but, is it a portent of a cold winter?) The days have been stunning, cloudless blue, and at night the Milky Way is a visible swath of silver glitter thrown across the sky.

Last week we went to a star party. We looked at Jupiter, a banded pearl set with four diamonds. We saw Andromeda, a smudge. We also got to see different globular clusters and open star clusters. Beautiful.

Fall and winter is the time of year for star gazing, if you can stand the cold.

Fall also brings out the colors in the grasses. These are over four feet tall, lit by the last rays of the sun.

Our dog, Ursa, is no small beast. At 100 pounds of love and adoration she easily disappears as she snuffles and snorts among the golden stalks. Can you see her in the above picture? Below she sits patiently waiting.

Just down the road is Camp Meeting Creek. We cross it every time we have to go anywhere and always look to see who is visiting. Sometimes it's a great blue heron. In the winter, mallards, wood ducks, and pin tails spend the days here safe from hunters and predators. A few days ago I saw this pretty, a snowy egret.

He waded in slow motion through the water and just by chance I caught this picture. It's hard to see, but there's a fish in his beak.

Fall, a favorite time of year.
What's yours?

6 comments:

  1. Gorgeous pictures! I felt like climbing right through my computer to come over for a visit. :)

    I love fall too... but don't feel ready for winter again already.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love the tall grass too. Fall has to be my favorite time of the year as well -- the weather is summerlike and I seem to have more balance than the lazy days of summer. But truthfully, each season brings its own blessings. I love all four.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Global warming meant hotter summers and colder winters at the end of the Pleistocene, so we may well have two cold winters in a row here. On the other hand, sometimes winters just are cold.

    Personally I like March and April best - more flowers and the migrating birds are more colorful, plus that quality in the air and the anticipation of the next stage of expansion, plus spring flowers are more fragrant. But seasons are like places. You only need to meet them on their own terms to love them.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Every season of the year offers its own joy, but if I had to choose, I'd go for late summer. Specifically the last two weeks of August and the first two weeks of September. It's hot and dry during the day, cool at night, the light turns golden and the ciccada bleat all day long. Ahhh. Perfect.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Beautiful photos, Bish! Love the one of your dog in the grass! Fall is awesome. It's so beautiful. But I love spring and summer, too. Winter I like the least--especially after a couple months of it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I do love autumn..but right now I'm in spring here in Oz.

    I love the pics

    ReplyDelete

Your Random Thoughts are most welcome!