Leaves

 Thursday walk in the Woods from the southeast gate. Last few days of gentle breezes have brought down more leaves. From the upper canopy seventy percent are down. Tall elms, green ash, pecan are mostly bare. But in the lower canopy seventy percent remain. Sugarberry, walnut, hickory, mulberry, are still in full leaf. I watched golden leaves trickling down in the still, warm air under the cloudy sky. After Friday's storm front many more (most) leaves will be down.

Last two years, dozens of understory trees, mostly mulberry and younger elm in the southeast quarter, re-flushed fresh new leaves in the early autumn. This autumn I see only three trees that have done this. Perhaps the tough summer drought and heat suppressed this.

Walking along the trails they are carpeted in gold.

Scores of robins through the Woods are 'flighty', busy foraging, I think the cloudy skies and sullen heavy moist air must tell them a storm is coming. There are many gathered around the East Pond. Some are dipping for a drink from small teacup-size depressions filled with water in the bottom of the otherwise empty pond. Woodpeckers are flying too, downy and flickers.

One full grown white-tailed deer dashes away. In two weeks, deer hunting season begins on the 19th. I expect to see small herds of deer move into the Woods for protection until early December.

Walking to the Northwest Pond I pass by the fallen Carpenter cottonwood. Its massive upper branches smashed against other large trees, green ash, box elder and locked upright against them. They stand there now like giants locked in combat, a testament to the destructive power of falling canopy trees and the huge weight of their crowns. Elsewhere below the big tree grove, three large trees have fallen together, as if uprooted by some giant's breath, one striking another and that one bringing down the third like dominoes.

I stop to turn over a small rotten log and see the colonies of busy small ants scurrying on the underside. I break off the top third of the spongy rotten log and open the interior where there are three Mesodon snails taking shelter. I imagine they have crawled into the log to find an insulated shelter, safe from the colder weather coming. I wonder why the ants do not bother them. With just a tinge of guilt I put the log back together rebuilding the snails' refuge.

Light rains the past two weeks have started the growth of new agaric mushrooms, two clusters of perfectly formed gray brown agarics with white stems from the base of a half-dead elm and two patches of much smaller golden orange agarics through the bark of a down box elder. Along the Barney's cutoff trail there are a hundred perfect small parasol mushrooms in one cluster. Only good for a day or two, a few have already begun to deliquesce, their caps melting with their spores.

I see new steps built in the Woods. Engineers providing a help on two of the steeper trail sections.

A peaceful golden few hours in the Woods. I will have to return after the storm Friday to see what leaves remain.