The long warm/ hot late summer drought of the past 9 weeks, August into late October, was decisively ended by the last three days of near continuous rain, four and a half inches, a gentle, long soaking. Forecast has moved from highs skirting low 80's to near freezing lows in a matter of days. Good time to return to the Woods with no fear of ticks.  Saturday morning at 10:30 I entered via the NW entrance and the NW Pond. I brought a saw to clear a dozen or more trees fallen across trails during the summer and autumn months. The Woods felt and looked like they had been abandoned for the summer, left to the wildlife and the trees. Good. Lots of things to see. This morning the place was full of life. At the NW Pond the water was up to 2.55 ft, almost, but not quite to the highest stepping stone. In the sedges along the sunny northern edge, the water roiled with basking Gambusia mosquito fish. Good to have them reducing chance of mosquito survival.. but it also means they are eating all the larvae of the 'good' species, dragonflies and such. The East Pond was up to 2.12 feet in depth and continues to look very different now with full sun. The big cottonwood that fell across the pond is not giving up. From its roots there were three or four patches of vigorous growth, green sprouts and new leaves, a few inches tall and grazed by deer. Maybe the roots will survive to build a new main stem.
  The northern entrance to the Tree Loop is beginning to recover from the over-zealous line crew clearing the 'right of way' too far into the Woods, cutting tagged, numbered trees, data from previous class studies. The walnut cut down to 1 m height has regenerated 5 or 6 stems and will survive. The same for a nearby honey locust. The stem-wounded Mexican hickory had a good crown this summer and will survive, although the healing wound may be the entry point of fungal stem rot pathogens that cause its demise, years from now. The slope down to the big, decapitated cottonwood is now a riot of chest-high, weeds that will help hold and heal the soil until shrubs and trees can regrow. Standing in the tall weeds, a loud buzzing heavy insect flew to my field cap and orange Stihl ear protectors for an instant, then landed 10 feet away on the bank. I picked up the handsome cordovan Cebrionid Scaptolenus rain beetle. Admired it for being out conducting its affairs (looking for mates?) on the cool wet morning after the days of rain and set it back on the ground, where it landed. A moment later a 'sleepy orange' Abaeis small butterfly landed near the beetle, its wings were a deep rich orange.
  Down by the Elm Bridge crossing, the water was too deep to cross, so I walked a bit downstream and jumped across some islands of gravel and accumulated woody debris. Upstream, Island Crossing was possible to jump too.
  On the south side of the Woods there was a pretty, 2 foot long garter snake, basking in warm sunlight near the Two Friends. I rarely ever see snakes in the Woods, average < once per year. The old cottonwood of the Two Friends is disintegrating progressively. Much of the bole is decaying back to soil. All through the Woods, elms that have succumbed to the elm disease, with the rain, have sprouted abundant big floppy growths of brownish-blonde flaccid fungi.
  On the Tree Loop, there are still tasty Mexican plums on the forest floor, north of the old persimmon trees. There is also a bumper crop of new walnuts on the ground by the oldest Albizia mimosa tree I cut 3 or 4 years ago. Green pecan nuts are falling too. Many have been harvested and dropped by squirrels.
  I was glad to see a couple of frogs hopping about in the Woods far from the ponds. There are small pools of rain water, bathtub-sized that would be good for them to colonize, scattered through the Woods.
  No deer, no flocks of robins, and no sign of other large quadrupeds, apart from one pile of scat on fallen log, filled with the 'berries' of Celtis sugarberry.
  I was happy to be able to walk up the Main SW trail a couple hundred yards, up just past the fallen, hanging elm. The flood water filled the trail from that point north and eastward.
   The old, weathered leafy crowns of the green ash stand and the big cottonwoods, sugarberries and elms have lost maybe 70% of their leaves.  The nut trees, oaks and pecans, still hold almost all of their leaves. The Parthenocissus Virginia creeper vine leaves are beautiful wine-red up the trees. The few poison ivy vine leaves are golden yellow. Along the western fence line small-flowered purple asters still bloom.
   I re-visited the patch of invasive Bittersweet and was not surprised to find a few more green leafy stems, surviving my eradication effort. More work for tomorrow.