And the summer became the fall...

...I was not ready for the winter.

As I mulled over this Stevie Nicks lyric from her song Nightbird, which exactly describes how I felt today, I remembered a Mutts comic strip I read earlier in the week that paints autumn in a far more joyful light.  It quoted Camus:

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower."

Just as the blush arrives on a peony bud about to open in the spring, so the glow of fire appears along the tops of maple trees as the nights grow cooler and sunlight slowly dwindles in amount and intensity.

The mimosa trees on the streets of Newark are fast becoming burnished in the same gold that accompanies blooming sunflowers in July.

The burning bush in front of my chiropractor's office, that horridly invasive but most resplendent denizen of the fall, had a smattering of intensely red leaves this week, with hundreds more to come.

My parents' pin oak, which my dad and I planted in the early 80s, will have nothing to do with the pageantry; it will go kicking and screaming spitefully with dead brown leaves hanging limply from its branches - and even that will be late in the season.

Clearly, my trepidation over the coming of winter (no pun intended, Game of Thrones) can wait several more weeks.  Point to Camus.

Live from Stokes State Forest

We spent Sunday in Stokes State Forest surveying three more small trails for the NY-NJ Trail Conference's Invasives Strike Force.  It was a nice surprise to see how little those trails were invaded, although we did see our first clump of purple loosestrife (trust me, it's evil).  The forest always has little gifts to give you each visit, so we took pictures of the ones we could catch.  I didn't dare go for the camera when a little ovenbird crossed the trail just a few feet in front of me for fear of scaring it, but that was my enduring image for the day.  

While walking around Stony Lake Trail, we noticed two stressed trees - as evidenced by their too-early fall foliage - by the lakeside.  A closer look revealed the source of the stress - beaver chew!

 While surveying for invasives, one spends a lot of time looking at ground level.  I happened to glance upwards when we stopped to mark a GPS point and was rewarded by a very well constructed wasp's nest.  I could tell that I was on Hunger Games overload when the first thing that came to mind was "tracker jackers!"

 These orange flowers were everywhere, and we didn't know what they were.  After some time with Newcomb's Wildflower Guide, we determined it to be spotted touch-me-not (or jewelweed).  It makes sense, since jewelweed is supposed to be an antidote to poison ivy, and I remember hearing on Dual Survival that they often grow near one another.  Please note that Japanese stiltgrass is SO invasive that it even photobombed this picture; it's the leaf with the silver stripe down the middle to the left of the flower.

Blooms

We realized this summer that we have accomplished our goal of having blooms throughout the growing season.  From the early spring forsythia to the black-eyed Susans and phlox in bloom now, the flowers just seem to jump around the gardens as the months pass.  Here are some favorites!

Forsythia x intermedia - one of our few non-natives, but the happiest and brightest harbinger of spring in this gardener's book.

Paoenia lactiflora - over 80 years old and still as ephemeral as youth.

Prunus persica 'Crimson Rocket' - we ate our first peach from this tree, which was planted two years ago.  The squirrel got the other peach.  He had better have enjoyed it too, the thieving rodent.

Syringa reticulata - our "wee tree," the free shade tree we got from the city, is the worst type of non-native:  Japanese (tree lilac)!  But we love it anyway.

Hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle' - these are the queens of blooms.  Several were the size of my head and feel just like silk.

Phlox paniculata 'David's Lavendar' - every year a carpenter bee dies in them.  I guess it's like crack to them.

Helianthus annuus 'Zohar' - I'll borrow Birdchick's nomenclature and point out the 'girls' collecting pollen.  You can get up really close to them and watch them get all dusty as they add to their pollen baskets.

Aloe Babies

I "babysat" a friend's aloe plant while she was away a few summers ago, and she gave me an offshoot of her plant.  It is now all grown up and has made a few offshoots of its own.  However, I have never seen an aloe plant throw up a flower stalk and I'm betting many other people haven't either.  So, imagine my surprise...

Great Backyard Bird Count

There's a great opportunity to take part in citizen science this weekend.  The Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC), sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, is from Friday, 17 February through Monday, 20 February.  You don't need a backyard; a park, street, school, etc. are just fine for watching birds.  Just follow these steps:
1.  Watch birds somewhere for at least 15 minutes and write down the largest amount of each species that you see.  (Need help with bird ID?  Try www.allaboutbirds.org, where you can browse species by shape and name.)
2.  Go to www.birdsource.org to enter your count.
By doing this, you contribute to the data pool about birds.  How are they being affected by disease and food availability?  Are there changes in your local bird populations?  Are certain populations declining and need help?  This data can help scientists - who can't be everywhere at once - to answer questions like these.

You can also explore data sets.  The pine siskin is a bird that is not usually found in New Jersey, but will come down this far south during an irruption year, when its usual seed crop in Canada fails.  The following two maps show pine siskins reported through the GBBC during an irruption year, and then a normal year.

It's also interesting to see all the different geographic boundaries of bird species.  Consider four types of chickadees, as shown in the following four maps.

The best part about this data is that it would not be possible without all the citizen scientists...and that it really can help the birds.  Besides, who wouldn't want to watch a cute tufted titmouse like this?
(Google images)