Six weeks after the autumnal equinox, we dodged the rain and took a cloudy hike.
It was our chilliest hike yet. We didn’t need to wear winter coats, but we made good use of gloves, as when my son showed me this mockernut hickory nut—inside its husk—while wearing my gloves:
Most of the green and yellow leaves we noticed on the trail last week were now brown, but we extended our range a bit and found this last section of yellow.
The creek was running faster, perhaps because of the recent rain and perhaps because the leaves clogging up the works upstream had cleared out (or perhaps these two things were related).
Lucky penny:
With the cool temperatures, we were surprised to see a garter snake (twice!) that seemed to have some sort of healed tail injury.
Picking up a maple leaf, we found a slug:
And a chipmunk posed for us near the remains of an old automobile:
We also saw a bunch of ducks on the river, but we were too scary to get close enough to take a photo before they flew off. The ducks are the little dots in the sky in this photo:
My kids were excited to get a photo of the plant that holds the spiky seeds that get stuck to our clothes. usually we just find the seeds and have no idea where they came from.
The seeds themselves look like mermaids’ purses (skate or dogfish egg cases) to me, but that might be my coastal childhood coming through.
One more photo to take you into next week:
Imperfect Happiness 
Gorgeous! super jealous of your leaves!
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Thanks! The leaves are nice, but the snow that follows them gets a little old after a couple of months. 🙂
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Fair enough. I’ve only seen the snow once — when I was 3 years old. I don’t remember it so I’m sure I’ve romanticized it a bit
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Oh, the snow is gorgeous and I love to see it for about a month, maybe even two, and in depths less than three feet (at least when I’ve got to shovel it). I’m not a New Englander by birth (Florida and California shaped my first ten years), and last year’s 9+ feet total for the season, which stretched from the first snowfall in November to the last snowfall in April, was a bit much for me.
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Yeah, that does seem like a bit much!
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