Autumn has certainly been spectacular in our woods this year. The maples led the way; their reds were more brilliant than ever, their yellows more golden. The morning sun lighting a maple whose leaves have just turned is always a thrill. Almost as thrilling is the ground covered with these leaves when they decide to come down. Every time I encounter a spot full of red or golden maple leaves, I swear the temperature goes up four or five degrees.
Most days when I am in the woods this time of year I take a group of photographs to send to my children so they can share the beauty. When sort through them, looking for the best photos to send, it is surprising how often they include pictures of leaves on the ground.
My wife’s birthday was October 7. When I first met her, she claimed that the weekend closest to her birthday was always the prettiest of the year. I can testify that that has been true most of the fifty-seven years since then. My walks always include several visits to the tulip tree we planted in her memory three years ago. It is approaching twenty feet tall now and appears to be prospering. After a buck, trying to scrape velvet off his antlers, scarred its bark, I installed a rugged deer-proof fence, which has been effective so far.
Probably because of her tree, I am especially protective of tulip saplings wherever I find them in the woods. They have a difficult time surviving; perhaps that is true of all saplings. I know of three that died after they were five or six feet tall, then produced suckers at the base which have prospered. Should I prune the weaker suckers and leave only the healthiest one?
Through most of October the weather has been equally spectacular. I have enjoyed long walks in the woods both mornings and afternoons, and been rewarded with different lovely vistas each time. One of the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the large number of fellow quarantinees who have rediscovered the glories of nature and are taking advantage of the opportunity to explore the trails in our woods.
It is particularly gratifying to see so many families with young children in the woods. Especially pleasing is a young child with a fistful of leaves. It isn’t just the color that makes them collectible; the variety of size and shape is equally attractive. The eponymous tulip leaves, the perfect star buckeyes, the mitten-shaped sassafras, and all the different oaks provide a marvelous spectrum of shapes.
Are the leaves really more brilliant this year than other years? Or, are we all more aware of the wonder of nature this year, because of our other problems? Conventional wisdom tells us that the overall history of precipitation, sunlight availability, and temperature, beginning in the Spring, influences the intensity of the Autumn colors. If so, we must have had the perfect combination this year. The same conventional wisdom tells us that the timing of the change in color is dictated primarily by the reduction in hours of daylight, beginning with the Autumnal Equinox. Thus it should occur at the same time every year; I am convinced it is happening several weeks later now than it did a generation ago.
A disappointment this Fall is the disappearance of my favorite clump of bittersweet. I can’t determine if it died a natural death or if the “Defenders of the Park” have finally discovered its location and added it to their list of “invasive species” casualties. I suspect my attachment to bittersweet dates back to the days when my wife and her sister gathered it each October just when “its orange capsules split to reveal crimson arils”. That’s the formal description of an annual phenomenon that juxtaposes two unique colors in a particularly attractive manner.
The bed that our stream cut years ago is an excellent instructor in hydrology and geology. It is a perfect example of a meandering stream, with gently sloping banks on the inside of the meanders and steep cliffs on their outside. Geologically, it is a history book of a time three hundred million years ago, when this area was close to the shoreline of a great ocean to the west, with rivers from the east building thick sediments of shale and sandstone.
As the gulley proceeds downhill through our woods it cuts through alluvial soil to thin layers of fragile shale and eventually into solid slabs of sandstone, which provide a surface so smooth it resembles pavement. Our stroll downstream takes us back to a time when the landscape was dominated by huge trees and ferns, and populated by amphibians and insects.
There has been a lot of activity in the woods recently, well-meaning folks who are committed to improving upon nature. They seem to have an obsession against thickets. I know one thicket quite well, as it contained several groundhog holes. On the occasions that Brandy deserted me and wouldn’t come back when she was called, I knew that’s where I would find her, digging furiously with her muzzle deep in the hole.
The thicket was impenetrable unless you were a desperate dog owner trying to recover his dog. This Fall they have levelled it and are in the process of planting light green plastic tubes in an orderly arrangement. Upon further inspection I determined that there was a tiny sapling at the bottom of each tube. Obviously a well-intentioned exercise in reforestation. But, shouldn’t we consider leaving a tiny vestige of wilderness somewhere?
With most of the maple leaves now on the ground, it is the oaks’ turn. We still have not had a frost, let alone a killing one. Nonetheless I suspect it is time for me to locate my L.L.Bean boots. It is easy for us octogenarians to relate to the symbolism of Fall making the transition into winter.