AUTUMN YIELDING TO WINTER

     Late October into November in southeastern Pennsylvania has a special, wild feeling rather than the warm, easy feeling of summer and early fall.  The sun is now low in the southern sky all day and daylight each succeeding day continues to get shorter.  The sun now appears to be setting as early as 3:30 P.M.  The average temperature per day is lower and the air is crisp and fresh, unlike the uncomfortable humidity of summer and early fall.  All this is a dramatic change that indicates that winter is approaching.   

     From late October, into November, green evergreen trees slowly become more visible as curtains of innumerable, warm-colored deciduous leaves fall to the ground, reminding me of a snowfall.  It's fun to kick through multi-colored, leafy carpets of dead, fallen foliage on the ground. 

     Most conifers are planted in southeastern Pennsylvania, mostly on lawns, in parks and elsewhere.  But in the bleak of late autumn and winter, they remind me of wild conifers in the mixed forests of the northern states and Canada, complete with their decorative cones.   

     At this time, deciduous woods become grayer every day as the multitudes of bare twigs, limbs and trunks of dormant trees are more visible.  And those woods seem at a low ebb of visible wildlife.  And,  usually, only the rapping of a woodpecker or two, or the rustling of gray squirrels in fallen leaf carpets are heard.

     At this time, too, gray squirrels, eastern chipmunks and blue jays busily gather acorns to stash in tree cavities and holes they dig into soil.  During the hardships of winter, these interesting lawn and woods creatures retrieve many of those stored nuts to ingest them.  The jays' blue feathers, incidentally, are beautiful when flashing about among the red and brown foliage of oak trees.

     In October, into November, wood chucks, striped skunks and black bears constantly eat to put on layers of fat for insulation and nutrition reserves through winter.  At this time, too, flocks of American robins and other kinds of berry-eating birds are ingesting berries and going to roost each winter late- afternoon in dense thickets of protective shrubbery and young coniferous trees.

     At this time of the year, one also sees orange pumpkins still lying decoratively in fields and beige corn stubble in other fields.  These crops are reminders of the First Americans who raised and harvested these crops in the Americas.      

     Red, orange or yellow sunsets are most vivid in the crisp, dry air of late fall into winter.  And those striking sunsets are enhanced by dark clouds that are highlighted by those warm-looking colors that belie the coolness of the air, and soil below it.  

     It's also exciting and inspiring to see swiftly-flying flocks of wing-whistling ducks, honking geese and cooing swans silhouetted black before striking sunsets in late fall, into winter.  Those waterfowl species rest on sky-reflecting ponds and lakes until dusk when they take flight to go to feed in harvested cornfields in the protection of darkness.  

     Some November evenings get cold and damp; time to build a warming campfire, or a fire in the fireplace at home for ultimate warmth and comfort with family at the hearth.      

     Late October into November in southeastern Pennsylvania has its own beauties in nature each year.  It is a time warm enough to still be out in comfort, yet cool enough to know winter is almost a reality.