coyote crazy

 I'm loving all the red berries right now.

honeysuckle

rosehips

burning bush (both)

Boneset is lining our walking path, another sign of fall.

So are shotgun shells...sigh.

Other fall beauties include goldenrod...

...and wild asters.

Pale jewelweed is blooming too.

I loved this plant as a kid.  If you squeeze their seedpods...

...they burst!

No real leaf color yet, other than a few random reds and yellows.

The problem is the rainfall.  Although we've had semi-frequent short sprinkles this late summer, we're at 50% less than normal.  September, normally a really rainy month, had only two rainy days.  Looking ahead for the next week, more temperatures near 90 degrees and no rain.  But mornings and nights are cool and we have atmospheric fog...

...and plenty of dew.

Mornings are chilly, usually in the mid-50s.  I love to open the windows and let the cool air in.  I can't open them at night...coyotes are howling all around us and would wake me up in the night if I didn't sleep with windows closed and earplugs in.

Lots of evidence of them running through our yard on a semi-regular basis...

coyote feces

...and they're showing up on our trail cams, too.

Another sure sign of fall is the return of the brown marmorated stink bugs.

Our screens are COVERED with them and they find their way inside, too, looking for a warm place to overwinter.  They're a big agricultural pest but don't harm humans (other than with their stench if you squash them).  They're always out in force right before it gets cold.

I love this transitional time...lots of cozy baking...

...and stolen moments with a good book!

(never really alone!)

We'll see what early October will bring.  I can't wait!

Have a great week!

Santa pants? Urine luck...

Beautiful fall asters are in full bloom right now!

I love seeing them against the deep yellow of the goldenrod.  I know that when the asters bloom, we are really starting to get into the meat of fall!

Leaves, of course, are a big clue.  God bless the breakdown of chlorophyll!!

I think the shirt I just bought perfectly expresses my feelings.

I love being outside when the temperature range is 40s through 70s.  Seeing all the signs of fall just makes me happy.  Asters, changing leaves, squirrels chowing down on hickory nuts and building up their winter store:

I've been seeing a lot of fungus lately, even though it hasn't been particularly damp.  I try to read about the fungus I photograph, but identification can be tricky sometimes. It's easy to identify some mushrooms, such as the common Turkey Tail (named for the obvious resemblance)...

...or orange mycena...

...but trying to Google-identify a 'white mushroom' is really an exercise in futility.  They come in so many shapes and sizes.

I came across some fascinatingly-named mushrooms, like Destroying Angel, Satan's Bolete, and Death Cap.  Apparently some mushrooms are so toxic that if you eat one you'll get sick, feel better, then die shortly thereafter of kidney/liver failure.  Many have no antidote.  Both the Destroying Angel and Death Cap mushrooms are found in North America and closely resemble edible mushrooms.  Maybe Todd was right in refusing to eat "perfectly healthy" mushrooms from our yard in South Carolina!  :)

I even read an interesting account of how poisonous mushrooms contributed to the costume of our modern-day Santa Claus!  It's true that St. Nicholas didn't wear bright red pants with white cuffs...so where did that outfit originate?  The article author claims that Siberian shamans used dried fly agaric mushrooms (the white-dotted red mushrooms seen in old Disney movies) for the hallucinogenic properties.  They would wear red and white when gathering to honor the colors of the mushrooms.  Drying de-toxified the mushrooms, but so did using a local resource:  reindeer.  Apparently the mushrooms made reindeer frisky, but it wasn't deadly to them.  Their livers would filter out the poison, the reindeer would urinate, and the shamans could gather the urine-soaked snow.  They'd carry it all back to the yurt, where they'd climb down through the hole in the top due to the high level of snow.  Red and white...frisky reindeer...going down the 'chimney'?  Here's a very short BBC video about the possible connection.  It's really fascinating!

Quiet cool days, waiting for "the big chill" of the 60s (I am shivering when temperatures are in the low 70s!), and enjoying the beauty of late September. 

Come on, October!!