Jack’s Wallk

©voyager, all rights reserved

The sunshine has returned and it’s a lovely autumn day. Jack and I decided that it was a perfect kind of day to go for a walk in the woods and instead of our usual little forest path, Trillium Woods, we went to a place called Vansittart Woods. It’s just out of town to the west and it belongs to our local school board who use it to educate kids about nature and camping. There’s an easy trail that winds through mixed hardwood and fir trees and eventually it connects to another trail that goes through open meadowland. Doing both trails is a bit much for Bubba (Jack’s nickname) and me so we stick to the short manageable forest path. Today the ground was covered with a blanket of newly fallen leaves and I found myself swishing my feet and kicking them up to make the leaves dance and to hear that wonderful crinkling, crackling, whooshing sound.

 

Jack’s Walk

It’s damp and drizzly again and while I might not like the weather there are certainly things that thrive when it’s moist outside. Fungus for example. Jack and I haven’t been to the forest in a few days and I was surprised to see this big bright piece of flaming fungus grown so large in 3 days. I swear it wasn’t there on Friday. It fits right in with the October colours all around it, but I didn’t expect to see fungus in a frilly orange party dress.

Flaming Fungus, ©voyager, all rights reserved

Pretty orange frills, ©voyager, all rights reserved

Jack’s Walk

Last year we didn’t really have too much of an autumn show of colour. Instead, most trees just went from green to brown to leafless. This year, though, autumn is glorious and all the trees are wearing their best, bright party dresses. Jack and I invite you to join us as we stroll around our neighbourhood and look at all the pretty October colour.

Just starting to colour up

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Jack’s Walk

 

©voyager, all rights reserved

I love the way fallen leaves collect on the ground and flutter with every passing car. They softly whoosh and dance and sometimes my heart swells just at the sight and the sound of them. I can often be found kicking my feet in the gutters and setting them in motion. Jack politely stays on the sidewalk, often giving me a look that says ‘mommy, we’re not allowed to walk on the road,’ but even his good manners can’t stop me. Come dancing leaves, my feet are restless and my ears hear the waltz in your sighs.

 

 

Jack’s Walk

©voyager, all rights reserved

The weather here has been glorious for the past 2 days. It’s T-shirt warm with cloudless blue skies and it was wonderful to be outside with the sun warming my back. We slowed down a bit to take in all the pretty colours and stopped once or twice to watch the squirrels dash here and there squirreling away their treasure. I think I should grab a book and go sit outside. Housework can wait. There won’t be many more days like this and it would be a shame to waste it.

Jack’s Walk

©voyager, all rights reserved

The sun is hiding behind gray and gloomy skies today and the forecast says that we can expect rain for the next 5 days. Five Days! That means that I won’t see the sun until next Thursday. And the dampness. Oh Dear, my Fibro does not like the dampness. I’m already having a double gravity kind of day.  Everything I do gets slower and more deliberate and requires more energy. I feel like I’m moving like a sloth. I call it The Creeping Jim Jams because my speed is set to creep and I’m all jammed up. Even my thinking gets slow. I think I might just ask the Mr. if he’ll go to Dairy Queen and get me a large cherry Blizzard. I’m going to go put on my jammies and binge watch A Series of Unfortunate Events on Netflix.

Here a Nut, There a Nut…

Everywhere a nut, nut!! This year has been extremely generous in the nut department, but knowing the distribution schedule, we’ll be out by christmas.

And also, as mentioned previously, the world’s giantest squirrel diligently seeking out those nuts causes a certain percentage loss per windy day. More on that later… Have some nuts!

The first nuts! They are now about two weeks old. Or would be, if we hadn’t et them. ©rq, all rights reserved.

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Jack’s Walk

Soggy leaves, ©voyager, all rights reserved

It’s another damp and dreary day around here and the weather forecast is for more of the same for days ahead. There wasn’t even moody fog today, just dull skies and soggy ground. Even worse, I tripped and dropped my camera and scratched the lens. The camera seems to be working fine, but for the next while my pictures may have a bit of scarring. I’ve been thinking about getting a better lens and perhaps this is the universe’s way of telling me not to wait any longer. In fact, it might just be time for an early Christmas/Festivus present for voyager. I’ll see how bad the damage is over the next few days and if it’s only minor I may try and wait. I think I might need to save a few more pennies to get the quality I want. I’m using a Canon T5i with an EFS 18 – 135mm lens. Any suggestions?

 

Not Quite Tree Tuesday

The trees are doing something odd out in northern Ontario:

In the forests of northern Ontario, a “strange phenomenon” of large natural rings occurs, where thousands of circles, as large as two kilometers in diameter, appear in the remote landscape.

Via this link: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Aerial-photograph-of-forest-rings-with-diameters-of-approximately-150-m-in-northern_fig1_292337890, which leads to a very scientific article on the phenomenon.

The article assures us that this is nothing unnatural or particularly mysterious:

Indeed, as geochemist Stew Hamilton suggested in 1998, the rings are most likely to be surface features caused by “reduced chimneys,” or “big centres of negative charge that frequently occur over metal deposits,” where a forest ring is simply “a special case of a reduced chimney.”

Reduced chimneys, meanwhile, are “giant electrochemical cells” in the ground that, as seen through the example of forest rings, can affect the way vegetation grows there.

I’ve been out there and it looked fine to me, but things get even weirder and weirder the more I read – but that just might be the full article going in all kinds of directions, especially at the end. But the tree rings are cool. And maybe it’s aliens…

Jack’s Walk

The setting for our walk this morning came complete with mood setting mist and the intermittent caws of a murder of crows. Very film noir, so Jack and I pretended we were on the run from the mob and that we had to find a cache left somewhere in the forest for us. We searched high and low with our eyes and our noses and I’m almost certain I heard the crack of a pistol and the swell of violins, but alas! we could not find the cache. My trusted familiar, Jackson Brown, proved his worth yet again, though, leading us safely to the motorcar left for our conveyance to safety.

Deep in the forest, ©voyager, all rights reserved

Jack’s Walk

Paper Birch, ©voyager, all rights reserved

It’s been rainy for days with cool temps and even though I don’t like the weather at least the trees have finally started to change colour. Around our neighbourhood the first trees to turn are the birches with their bright yellow and gold leaves. Even on a dull, rainy day those birch leaves shine like sunflowers on a summer’s day. I suspect that the maples will colour up quickly now that the weather is decidedly set to autumn. I’m looking forward to getting lots of autumn trees to post from all of you, hint hint. I haven’t had any tree submissions in a while and I’d like to see what you’ve got.

Fall Colors of a Rowan Tree

Today I managed to get home before the sun set completely  and I was not hungry overmuch, so I managed to grab my camera and go for a walk for a change and I experimented a bit with this and that.

Today I wish to share a few shots of a roadside cluster of rowan trees. I love rowan trees, every part of them. In the fall, they are the first ones starting to change color around here. The fall has truly arrived.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.