October 30, 2010

I ventured out to the mailbox this morning, the sun well up and the thermometer at freezing. Last week's storm blew most of the remaining leaves from the trees, but the sugar maple still flames and the mulberries are showing some green.

Milkweed skeletons hold their seeds to the wind...

And goldenrod seed heads catch the early sun's rays.

A flock of a dozen white-crowned sparrows flit between the rugosa rose hedge and the field, foretelling the coming winter.

I got busy with other things over the last couple of weeks (for more about that, see http://speedingpullet.blogspot.com), and when I turned around again, it was fall! It's gotten chilly at night, the furnace has been kicking on all week, and we've finally gotten some rain.

Fall colors are starting to make an appearance here and there like on this poison ivy in the field.

The goldenrod are past their peak, but the field is full of these purple-stemmed asters (Aster puniceus). I didn't see any butterflies, but the honeybees are still out and eagerly making use of them.

Large milkweed bugs are still to be found on the now-seeding milkweeds.

Oleander aphids (Aphis nerii), another toxin-sequestering milkweed denizen crowd the few remaining green stems. This is the wingless form of this all-female species--each offspring is a clone of the mother.