autumn collages...

In late September, I drove up to Jayme's to return Brooklyn who spent a few days enjoying her grandparents attention. I was awestruck by how beautiful the fall foliage was on my drive. In our area of the state we just went from green to a dried up brown except for the sumacs, a consequence of the drought we are experiencing. After spending the night at their house, I left for home at 7 am when they left for work. It was a brisk cool morning and I couldn't help but notice the steam rising from the warmer waters of the St. Louis river into the cold air. I pulled into the Scanlon river park and took a few shots of the sun rising over the steamy waters.

On my drive home I also noticed a steam covered lake along the highway and several huge fields of pumpkins waiting to be picked.

I love this time of year and watching all the birds that are migrating through the garden including the white throated sparrows and warblers. There are many Harris sparrows still around but they have yet to stop and pose for me :) The junco flocks have arrived so sadly that means winter is not to far away.

Last week I started the garden cleanup but there were many blossoms left to enjoy. We've now had several hard freezes so next week the remaining garden will be cut down.

The photos are not really great in this last collage because they are from Jeff's trail cam - we've been hearing about a partial albino fawn in these parts and finally got a few photos of him. Jeff calls him the Appaloosa because of his coloring :)