Sudden Autumn

First frost was here this morning. After a long, seemingly interminable, series of September weeks with daytime highs in the mid 90's, the night time lows zoomed sharply downward to 31F.
After lecture today and office work this morning I decided to go to the Woods at noon with a saw. I entered via the NW trail. By the NW#3 post I encountered a large hackberry top broken out of a dead snag and tumbled into the trail with a tangle of vines. There were lots of galleries of wood borers - mainly cerambycids all across the bark. Not too sure when the beetles were there.. recent couple years or previous. Nice 'interference zones' of fungi in the saw cut cross section of the big logs.

It took a while, but I was able to clear the original path.
The good rains of late September still left the NW pond empty.

I drove around to the NE entrance and hiked in, to the east end of the N Rim trail, where another large snag had fallen into the trail. No vines. I cleared it. On the way there, a 3 toed box turtle was strolling along the trail 20 feet east of Isld. Crossing. I saw just one deer.. SW of Isld. Crossing.

The Woods are looking much more open now. Much of the lush understory herbs growing in June are greatly reduced or disappeared. No significant autumn leaf drop from the canopy yet. The common trailside Elephantopus have all produced spiky green seed heads.