November 1st
The 305th Day of the Year

All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction which thou canst not see.

Alexander Pope

Sunrise/set: 7:04/5:33 Day's Length: 10 hours 29 minutes
Average High/Low: 57/38 Average Temperature: 48
Record High: 79 - 1950 Record Low: 20 - 1906

Weather
Record highs for November are almost always set during the first days of the month, and today the chances for an afternoon in 90s are five percent, and for 70s thirty percent. In fact, November 1st brings 70 degree temperatures more often than most October days. Highs in the 60s come 20 percent of the time, in the 50s thirty percent, in the 40s, 30s and 20s five percent each. This is also one of the sunniest days of the month, with a 70 percent chance for clear to partly cloudy skies. Frost occurs on only 15 percent of the mornings, and rain falls just 45 percent of the years.

Natural Calendar
The workday begins to shrink more quickly now, losing two minutes every 24 hours: November takes almost an hour from the day’s length. The average wind speed increases to winter levels, ten to eleven miles per hour; it will remain that high through April. In colder years, turkey vultures leave the sky until the first or second week of March. All the other major migrations end within the next two weeks. Throughout the month, bulbs, shrubs, and dormant roses can still be set out, but November’s first week usually provides the most pleasant weather for outdoor activities.

Daybook
1982: Most of the maple leaves in town fell overnight in the wind and rain. The cherry leaves are down in the backyard. Catalpa long gone. Many ginkgo still full foliage, deep gold and losing leaves slowly.

1983: Ginkgoes turning quickly now at my window and on Herman Street and Xenia Avenue. The maples in front of the house have lost two thirds of their leaves.

1985: Cherry leaves all still green, cherry the most unpredictable and capricious of autumn trees.

1986: Along King Street, a few chicory, thyme-leafed speedwell, and Queen Anne's lace are still flowering; osage all full yellow green, dogwoods yellow, green, and pink. At the Glen, ailanthus leaves are gone. There are still violets blooming. The pond at the end of Cemetery Street is full of geese.

1987: South Glen, 75 degrees. Cabbage moths still common. Wood ducks migrating down river, blackbirds clucking, kingfishers screaming and racing back and forth above the water. Some robins in the honeysuckles. A large flock of doves by the second fishing hole (one carp caught 11:15 a.m.). The canopy is gone, but the path is still green, dappled with late violets. Ironweed is white for picking, and goldenrod and thimbleweed are pale and bushy like thistledown throughout the undergrowth. Barberries, rose hips, and coralberry shine in the dull fields and hedgerows. The very last asters are in bloom. Grasshoppers still here, crickets loud. With all the trees and shrubs bare, the river reflects the whole blue sky against the last golden leaves along the bank. In town, Bradford pears are deep, rich red. Most Osage gone (those with fruits), while those without are golden. One Osage variety seems immune to frost, the other blackens at the first hard freeze.

1988: Flocks of starlings and geese are flying over almost every day. All ginkgo leaves gone. Lil's maple 80 percent gone. Oaks still red and brown, full color. My sweet gum tree keeps half its foliage. Cherry and pussy willow still keep most of their leaves. Most maple raking for the year is done, garden full of mulch.

1989: Geese fly over 8:39 a.m. My ginkgo is a third gone.

1990: My ginkgo is full gold today, the complete transformation accomplished since October 29th. Along the way into Yellow Springs on Grinnell, the canopy above the road is gone. A brown ridge of branches, highlighted by red and orange oaks, remains above the valley. My poplar at home thins quickly, maybe a third left. Mums still strong and bright.

1992: The quince falls quickly now, leaves yellow and speckled. Last phase of leaf color beginning: most maples gone, oaks still full, accentuated by scattered remnants. Grass bright green in the rain. The mums in the south garden are lanky but are still at full color; snapdragon foliage holds, a few small-flowered yarrow cut, foliage fresh. Two strawberries lie red in the garden, sweet and firm.

1997: The leaves continue to hold in this latest of possible autumns. Even the maple in front of our house, usually the first to go at the end of the third week in October, has half its leaves, all golden. Around town, the maples are still at their peak, joined now with the red sweet gums and the golden and maroon oaks. Maggie says that the leaves are holding in Madison, Wisconsin, too, that last week there was a snow that held so beautifully to the late foliage.

1998: A few crows at 6:34 a.m. – a little later, several hundred crows swooped into town and sat in some bare maples on Limestone Street. In the greenhouse today, I found that a caterpillar ate most of one of my tomato plants, left his droppings on a leaf and disappeared.

1999: Lil’s maple starting to lose leaves now. Danielson’s almost done. Barberries, pears, and burning bush full and bright red throughout the village. This afternoon, a white cabbage moth flew by the yellow heart-shaped leaves of the redbud tree.

2003: One cardinal sang at 6:50 this morning. Another cardinal song at 7:20. By 7:30, blackbirds had started their clucking in the back trees. A large flock of blackbirds seen cleaning up a soybean field on the way to Dayton. In the greenhouse, Christmas cacti, red, white, violet, are in full bloom. In the south garden, almost all the Korean lilac leaves have fallen, had turned a deep yellow before they fell. The pink quince foliage is thin, but golden. One of the red mulberry trees along the south border has lost about two thirds of its leaves; the other still has most of its leaves.

2004: The magnolia across the street is almost bare. The pink quince bush has lost about three-fourths of its leaves. Red mulberry trees are losing leaves, are down to half. The white mulberry is turning all at once. Many dogwoods are a rich, deep red throughout town. In the countryside, only the yellow Osage stand out. In the south garden, the soil temperature is 57.

2005: Out in the countryside, leafturn has passed the peak, but full gold remains in many woodlots. I estimate that maybe half of the trees are down. Along High Street, Lil’s and Mrs. Timberlake’s maples are still full, Danielson’s about a fourth gone. At Wilberforce, all the ashes and most of the locusts have fallen. One ginkgo is two-thirds shed, the others still green.

2006: Leafturn is way past its peak now along the road to Wilmington. Lil’s tree half down, Timberlake’s almost all down. A small flock of robins in the alley this morning at 8:30. A cardinal was singing when I went outside at 6:40. I’ve finished putting ten yards of mulch around the yard, have cut the grass and mulched some of the leaves into the lawn. The garden is clearly outlined now, neat and ordered for winter and spring, as beautiful as I’ve ever seen it. The quince is full gold. A seedbug found in the house late this afternoon. Walking with Bella, I felt the power of the “thin time,” the space between seasons, the communion of the living and the dead, the call of second spring, the call of winter’s rest.

2007: A cardinal sang while I walked Bella in the dark alley this morning at 7:40 (EDT). A wren was chattering in the back yard when we got home. Mild weather continues, with frost in the mornings, clear sky, Venus so bright. The oaks are turning now in the Mills Lawn park.
***
Out of the matted roots of the turf and from the gray soil beneath, innumerable forms of life resembling those that have vanished will spring to light – creatures of a thousand beautiful shapes, lit by brilliant color, intense in their little lives, forever moving in a passionate, swift, fantastic dance. And we shall see it all again, and in seeing renew the old familiar pleasure.

William Henry Hudson

November 2nd
The 306th Day of the Year

Ah, see! among the newly leafless trees,
the first new leaf: the moon!
under the owl's dark wing,
as winter coming,
the one unfurled leaf
among dark boughs, dark boles
where in sheathed buds
lurks, waiting secretly, the spring.

August Derleth

Sunrise/set: 7:05/5:32 Day's Length: 10 hours 27 minutes
Average High/Low: 57/38 Average Temperature: 47
Record High: 77 - 1961 Record Low: 20 - 1954

Weather
Rain falls 35 to 40 percent of the time on this date. Highs in the 70s occur 15 percent of the afternoons. Sixties are recorded on 25 percent of the years, 50s on 30 percent, 40s on 25 percent, 30s on ten percent, and 20s on five percent. Frost strikes one night in five, and the sun appears on 55 percent of the days.

Natural Calendar
By this stage of the autumn, soil temperatures often fall into the middle 40s, and the grazing season ends in most Midwestern pastures. Tobacco fields are tested after the crop has been prepared for market. Sugar beets are typically more than three-fourths dug, and the pumpkin harvest nears completion. Orchids often reach full bloom now in conservatories throughout the country.

Daybook
1982: South Glen woods: Canopy gone. All the flowers have died back, but foliage is bright on violets, garlic mustard, waterleaf, henbit, celandine, smooth-leafed dock, cinquefoil, sweet rocket, yarrow. Small flock of doves in the sycamores. A few crickets heard tonight.

1983: Lil's maple turns overnight. Our maples and Mrs. Lawson's lost their leaves today (two days later than last year) Ginkgoes solid gold outside my window.

1985: In the chilly, rainy afternoon, craneflies the size of mosquitoes spin near the front porch. Cherry tree just starting to turn. Lil's maple almost full yellow. Tree of heaven has lost most of its branches. The Osage is speckled, yellow, holding maybe two thirds of its leaves. Doves noticed in the back woods behind the house.

1986: Cardinal sings at 6:55 a.m., a few minutes before sunrise. The river nude, with new curves, its lizard's tail all withered. Migrating robins heard up the hill. Carp caught at the far fishing hole, 11:55 a.m. Lil's maple three-fourths gone. Ginkgo by my window finally starting to turn.

1987: Cincinnati, 77 degrees: Chicory blooming strong by the roadsides. In Dayton, the tree line is shining yellow as though this were a warm April day, and a giant hedge of forsythia were blossoming.

1990: Crickets remain loud day and night. Flies are out in the sun. At the mill, all the colors are crisp against the blue sky; and the newly emerged backdrop of brown earth and leaves makes the remaining greens stand out. Lil's maple full gold and falling.

1991: Uncle Bill called from Gentilly, Minnesota, a blizzard there today. Here in Yellow Springs almost a thousand miles south: flurries.

1994: Robins are still all over the Glen, socializing, feasting on berries, bathing in the river, swooping back and forth; they seem to be celebrating, planning, courting. Turkey vultures still circle above Grinnell Road.

1995: The sugar maple in front of the house finally dropped the rest of its leaves today. Most of the maples held on an extra week this year.

1999: Cloudy, windy, cold and rainy, sleet in the rain, leaves collapsing: the late fall cold front is again on time. The ginkgoes in Oakwood are all solid gold, half down around their trunks. Utter beauty of the unraveling landscape, disheveled elegance, decadent display of such color, such patterns.

2000: Two thirds of the sweet gum leaves are down, almost all the maples. Sulphurs, yellow butterflies with black edges on their wings, are mating in the field behind my pine trees.

2001: Yesterday I saw buzzards over the bike path heading south. Only a few scattered wildflowers left here, a couple of tall bellflowers, some small coneflowers, two asters. Goldenrod has lost all its foliage. At the library, oakleaf hydrangea leaves are purple. Hawthorn leaves are red. Sweet gums thinning quickly.

2002: I watched the late fourth-quarter moon rising about an hour before dawn, its tips pointing up like horns, the dark lunar shadow clear in the transparent sky. In the yard, a killing frost. Late morning: a flock of blackbirds in the back trees. A few robins eating honeysuckle berries at noon. Along the freeway, the first tier of leaves is finally down. The other tiers are holding on a week to ten days past their average drop date.

2003: A cardinal sang at 6:45 this morning. I went outside at 7:10 in the soft 60-degree morning. The blackbirds were already in full song, their volume increasing in the 20 minutes I sat in the yard. I heard crows, blue jays and a wren. Squirrels played in the bare black walnut trees, hung upside down eating nuts. Lil’s maple is shedding quickly, as is Lee and Jerry’s, more than half down. Mrs. Timberlake’s maple is well ahead of Lil’s, several days behind the Danielson’s (which is already bare). As I worked outside in the warm afternoon, I saw three or four cabbage butterflies, several wasps, a yellow sulfur and a new Painted Lady, her colors deep and bright. Nestled in a late-blooming purple coneflower, two bumblebees, one small.

2004: The magnolia is down, the pink quince almost gone. The three oaks by the church park have lost most of their leaves. Whistling crickets still whistle through the mild, damp nights.
2005: Asian lady beetles continue to fly around the house. Lil’s maple still a rich gold, the burning bush deep red below it. Danielson’s maple maybe a third down, Mrs. Timberlake’s matching Lil’s. The magnolia down the street has hardly started. Lee and Jerry’s sweet gum is still solid green. Oaks are brown and red by the church. Redbuds falling quickly. Grape leaves come down from the vine in the ash at the southeast corner of the yard.

2006: After a freeze in the upper 20s this morning, almost all of the white mulberry leaves came down in the back yard. All the Yellow Springs ginkgoes along Dayton Street came down overnight, and at Wilberforce, all of my ginkgo trees were bare and the red maples in the parking lot were more than half down. As I drove to Wilmington, I watched heavy leafdrop from sugar maples throughout the area. At home, most of the maples are finished along High Street, magnolias losing leaves, wisteria leaves gone overnight. Sweet gums are full color along the highway and at Jerry and Lee’s house, half shed in other locations. The peak is long gone everywhere. Mateo’s foliage of elm and red mulberry has disappeared.
***
There are no fixed limits,
Time does not stand still.
Nothing endures,
Nothing is final.
The game is never over,
Summer and winter,
Birth and death
Are even.

Chuang Tzu (Trans. Thomas Merton)

November 3rd
The 307th Day of the Year

The days overlap
from year to year.
and within their repetitions
are their subtle, secret movements
showing only in my journal
observations, lost until I look again,
and find my moments reappearing
like black and wet November
ginkgoes through the morning fog.

Bill Felker

Sunrise/set: 7:06/5:31 Day's Length: 10 hours 25 minutes
Average High/Low: 56/38 Average Temperature: 47
Record High: 77 - 1987 Record Low: 13 - 1951

Weather
Chances for highs in the 70s are 15 percent, for 60s fifteen percent, for 50s twenty-five percent, for 40s forty percent, for 30s five percent. Rain comes four days in a decade, snow one day in a decade. Skies are overcast 40 percent of the time. Morning frosts occur one night out of two.

Natural Calendar
Clouds lie lower in the sky, and the percentage of sunny days and partly sunny days drops from October's peak (about 60 percent) to winter's averages (about 30 percent). Chicory and Queen Anne's lace still bloom here and there along the roadsides. An occasional autumn violet is still open in yards and pastures. Grasshoppers continue to feed. Crickets are normally still active.

Daybook
1982: Fat cabbage worms are eating the garden kale. All the poplar leaves in the yard have fallen except those at the very top; they quiver in the wind.

1983: Cardinal sings at 6:51 a.m. Two buzzards circling along Wilberforce-Clifton Road, the last of the local flock. At South Glen, the weather is windy and misty, high 40s, gray. The canopy is gone except for some oaks, the sycamores, and the Osage orange. Only a few flowers, a late zigzag goldenrod, and a pale purple aster, one autumn violet, then more violets among a patch of henbit. Sweet Cicely, sweet rocket, and garlic mustard foliage growing taller. Goldenrod a burnt brown color. Rose bushes yellowing. Sycamore leaves parachute one by one into the preserve. A parsnip with buds is ready to bloom.

1986: Cardinal sings 6:51 a.m. The ginkgo near Brush Row loses its leaves in a day, a pile of bright gold leaves, thick, leathery soft. Two buzzards seen circling above Grinnell.

1987: All the milkweed in the county seems open. Hedgerow shrubs are yellowing in the rain like rows of tall sweet clover or April forsythia in bloom. Apples leaves keep pace with the pussy willow leaves, almost gone. Most Osage foliage is down.

1988: Geese fly over at 8:00 a.m., continue restless through the day. My poplars are yellowing but have retained most of their leaves. Half of the winter tomatoes have set fruit, some are now half an inch to an inch in diameter. The first bud appeared on the Christmas cactus yesterday.

1989: Cardinal sings near seven o'clock this morning. Magnolias: all but a few leaves gone. Sycamores hold along Corry Street. Lil's maple: a third left. Mums hold well to this point in the year. No killing frost yet. Until a day ago, Madison, Wisconsin had missed the killing frosts, too.

1991: All white mulberry leaves down this morning. First snow flurries, record lows throughout the country.

1992: The garlic that was not dug this summer is starting to grow back in the garden, some spikec an inch or two high. Quince nog almost all gone. All rose of Sharon down. Oaks go quickly, most of the tree line bare. Uncle Bill says he has six inches of snow on the ground in Gentilly, Minnesota, geese loud there every few minutes, rushing south. Some crickets tonight, temperature still in the 60s.

1993: Robins still migrating through South Glen, a small flock seen just past the bridge.

1995: The leaves of the red maple at the park are almost all down, silver maples on Limestone Street are a full palomino gold and beginning to thin.

1999: Yesterday, the ginkgoes were shedding. Today, it’s the mulberries, white and red. The back yard fills up with the late-fall leaves, and the barrier between the south garden and the house next door disintegrates. This morning, the first substantial snow of the year, a fourth of an inch on top of yesterday’s inch of rain.

2000: Two buzzards seen.

2002: The west red mulberries are gone, as is the box elder beside them. The red quince is pale and thinning. My maple behind the shed is a rich gold and starting to disintegrate, as is the Danielson’s maple across the street. The high locusts in back are bare. The ginkgo is down at Xenia Avenue and Herman Street. Susi’s Osage fruits are all over the ground; she’s no longer there to have Scott roll them down the road.

2003: A cardinal sang at 6:45, a Jenny wren chattering below it in the honeysuckles at the back of the yard. My white mulberry is maybe half yellow now.

2004: The white mulberry, full yellow, started to shed overnight. The red mulberries along the south border are maybe two-thirds down. Robins peeping all around the neighborhood. Starlings clucking nearby. I drove through a huge flock of blackbirds on the way to Cedarville at 10:30 a.m. A doe killed on the highway beyond Jamestown. Green winter wheat noticed for the first time this fall. My ginkgoes at Wilberforce were full gold, half down. Over a dozen buzzards were roosting in a tree above Grinnell Road about 4:15 p.m., five or six others were circling above them as I cam by. At South Glen, winged euonymus was a still a strong rose red through the undergrowth. Nodding smartweed leaves remained pink by the side of the path. One leafcup flower seen.

2005: Screech owl calling at 5:45 this morning. Across the countryside between Yellow Springs and Wilmington, the peak has passed, and silver maples have begun to turn silver and pale palomino gold. In Wilberforce, one ginkgo is down, and the others are shifting to ochre. Along Dayton Street, however, maples are still very bright yellow and orange, Japanese maples deep red. When I was at Greg’s house this evening, a small camel cricket appeared by their stairway.

2006: More frost, nights in the 20s, have shriveled most of the hydrangea leaves (except for the oak-leaf hydrangea) and the redbud leaves. Rose of Sharon are almost gone, and honeysuckles are dropping quickly. Rosebuds have finally shriveled. The curly-branched tree in the alley, though, has kept its green leaves – even though they seem brittle. Robins eating berries and starlings singing in the alley at 8:30 a.m.

2007: Light frost continues morning after morning, but the impatiens and the elephant ears have escaped damage so far. In the alley, many orange euonymus berries have emerged overnight. The maple there is almost gone, but a Stafford Street ash is still deep gold. Don’s tree held a pair of grackles and a starling. Robins whinnied and moved through the honeysuckles. One junco, the first I’ve seen, flew over Don’s fence as I approached. Now Lil’s maple is turning, the Danielsons’ is full yellow-orange and shedding, but Mrs. Timberlake’s is still green. More leaves coming down throughout town, the peak finally starting to disintegrate.
***
Every year,
accompanied by a change in the weather,
The ginkgo reverses its magnetic field
And drops a sheet of gold at its feet
Like a metronome shedding time,
Like a skeleton shedding cellular richness
To stand like a lightning rod for the sun.

Robert Paschell

November 4th
The 308th Day of the Year

To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom. Since our office is with moments, let us husband them. Let us be poised, and wise, and our own, today.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sunrise/set: 7:07/5:30 Day's Length: 10 hours 23 minutes
Average High/Low: 56/37 Average Temperature: 47
Record High: 76 - 2003 Record Low: 17 – 1951

Weather
Highs reach 70 fifteen percent of the years, are in the 60s another 15 percent, in the 50s twenty-five percent, in the 40s thirty percent, in the 30s ten percent, in the 20s five percent. Light frost comes 50 percent of the mornings, hard frost ten percent, rain 40 percent of the days, snow ten percent. After today, thunderstorm activity usually ceases until February; but all-day rains increase.

Natural Calendar
Asparagus fronds and hosta leaves yellow in the garden. Gold finches have lost all their bright plumage; they are brown for winter. Along the highways, ironweed and white boneset seeds are soft and pale. Heads of goldenrod and thimbleweed are tufted like cotton through the undergrowth, their foliage deep chocolate brown.

Daybook
1983: Ginkgo leaves fall quickly, form a golden mantle under the branches. Rose of Sharon is bare.

1985: One ginkgo by my window is gone, others losing leaves quickly. Lil's maple just turning yellow.

1988: The white mulberry tree in the yard and Lil's maple across the street are now completely bare. Apple, pussy willow and cherry hold at half. The drive to Bowling Green this afternoon was warm and rainy; I traveled through the barometric low that precedes late fall. From Yellow Springs north, almost all the trees were down except the green willows, some oaks and stragglers. Most harvest appeared complete.

1989: The major leafdrop is over, and the shock of the change is gone. I am used to the bare branches, and the remaining leaves are no longer fragments of summer but signs of the new season, like blooming trees in April. In the city, gum, willow, and beech are still strong; now the colors shine, gifts of November. The late white mulberry tree in the back yard is suddenly all yellow gold. Most cherry and pussy willows fell in the wind today. A cardinal sang this morning about 7:00, continued off and on until about 8:30.

1990: Tulips planted yesterday in 70-degree temperatures and a soft south wind. Warm again today for digging in the daffodils. It has been the longest autumn. All the late silver maples are palomino gold. The cherry tree is a translucent burnt orange, foliage dropping quickly now. The honeysuckle and quince are dappled. Pear leaves beginning to turn at the edges. Burning bush and barberry still red. The poplar was so bright and gold in the sun yesterday, bending in the wind. Pussy willows: the second set of leaves is green and strong. Robins all around the yard this morning, cardinals, a flicker. Now an aloe has sent up a spike in the greenhouse, and five of my indoor tomato plants have filled up the windows in which I placed them. Four other pots are started, sprouts a few inches tall. Late fall comes with the rain tonight.

1993: In the rain and cold wind, Jeanie's students picked her a big bouquet of dandelions on the way across the golf course this afternoon.

1994: I finally filled the bird feeders two days ago, and the gold finches are here, all brown for winter. The chickadees swoop back and forth to their seeds in the tube feeder, a pair of cardinals feed on the gazebo platform. Out to Dayton this morning: there are plenty of maples still holding, but the tree line is predominantly gray, and there's no doubt that it's late fall now (but early late fall). At South Glen, the river is clear, slow, and cold, reflecting the gray sky and the black tree trunks, the remnants of golden Osage, red spicebush, yellow-green honeysuckles. It has been a dry fall, and the water is down. The sloping banks are speckled with sycamore and oak leaves. The migrating robins and the turkey vultures have left, and the woods are quiet in the late afternoon. Two mallards, male and female, feed across the river, maybe fifty feet away. They seem listless, and indifferent to the danger my dog and I might pose. Are they old or sick? Will they overwinter here like we will? What will the winter bring us?

1995: Uncle Bill called today from northern Minnesota to report the first freeze and the first snowstorm of the year. Gentilly, a thousand miles north west of Yellow Springs, had its first killing frost at the same time as we did here.

1998: The white mulberry in the backyard collapses after a nighttime low in the middle 20s. All day, the yellow-green leaves fall, surrounding the trunk with their soft demise. Across the street, Lil’s tree goes quickly, the Danielson’s almost finished. But along Corry Street, the sycamores hold green and orange, healthy as they were in October.

1999: One bud still on the water lily in the pond, but only six leaves. The big koi still feed, even though the water temperature is probably in the 40s or low 50s. The woodlots on the way to Dayton were almost bare today, no bright maples or oaks lighting up the horizon. By the roadsides, the honeysuckles and silver olives were yellowing. In town, the beech is becoming red orange.

2001: Some fields plowed for spring between Columbus and Washington Courthouse. Black earth, surrounded by November green, the winter wheat fields glistening in the late afternoon sun.

2002: Robins whinnying in the back yard at sunrise. Dahlias dug this afternoon, old zinnias pulled up. A few spiderworts managed to open today. On the road to Wilmington, the peak has passed, but a certain color density remains. Leaf-fall continues to be intense but has still not pushed the landscape all the way into late fall.

2005: One cabbage butterfly seen today. A brown and black woolly bear caterpillar found walking along on the greenhouse floor.

2007: This morning on our walk, Jeanie noticed two of the bittersweet hulls had opened. The bittersweet leaves were a soft, tawny yellow. Long flock of blackbirds or starlings crossed Dayton-Yellow Springs road, flying north as we drove home from shopping.
***
There is a seasonal exhaustion in the air. The ground is cool and subdued as the hills turn dusky and purple by late afternoon. I pass cleared fields full of stubble, the lank, dark stalks of corn. Milkweeds, where monarchs deposited their eggs, have opened their pods, and the white silk lies over browning grass like wisps of cotton, or is concentrated in spots like the downy feathers of a chicken caught by a fox.

John Hay

November 5th
The 309th Day of the Year

Whence is it, that the flow’ret of the field doth fade,
And lieth buried long in winter’s bale?
Yet, soon as spring his mantle hath displayed,
It flow’reth fresh, as it should never fail?

Edmund Spenser

Sunrise/set: 7:08/5:29 Day's Length: 10 hours 21 minutes
Average High/Low: 55/37 Average Temperature: 46
Record High: 76 - 1977 Record Low: 12 - 1908

Weather
Today is another pivotal date in the advance of winter: the chances for 70-degree temperatures drop from 15 percent to below five percent. Sixties occur one year in five, 50s one year in two, with 30s and 40s making up the remaining 25 percent. Rain comes 45 percent of the time, snow ten percent. The sun appears just six days in ten.

Natural Calendar
In the southern sky before midnight, the Pleiades are approaching from the east, Taurus not far behind them. Pisces is due south, Pegasus above it to the west. Fomalhaut, the brightest star of late summer is low on the southwestern horizon. The Big Dipper hugs the northern tree line, the Little Dipper hanging down to the left of Polaris.

Daybook
1982: My ginkgo leaves fell overnight. First light snow this morning. Red clover seen in bloom along the roadside.

1983: Ginkgo leaves cover the ground, all having dropped overnight, the same night as last year. Osage still yellow green, fruits still thumping to the streets. Some maples still keep their leaves in town; in the country, only the oaks and sycamores stay at all. Violet and white asters still blooming. Cherry trees and pussy willows turning brown. Willows strong and green, poplars also. In Xenia, silver maples almost untouched by the cold.

1985: A pair of buzzards circling alone near South Glen.

1988: At 5:40 p.m., the barometer lies at 29.30, its lowest of the year, the last storm of middle fall is moving in for sure, a moth plays in the twilight by the honeysuckle berries.

1989: Ginkgo leaves cover the ground, fallen overnight, the same as in '82 and '83. Some crickets still sing in the 60-degree evening.

1990: Geese fly over at 5:30 p.m.

1992: First snow at 5:00 a.m. At dawn, the forsythia hedge is bowed and white above, glowing pale green on the lower branches.

1996: I come home and record the last of the leaves, the persistence, the stubborn resistance of the old year against what I know will come. I record the last bunches of magnolias, the sudden collapse of the ginkgo canopies. I make some note about the maple across the street in Lil's yard, note the time the cardinals sing.

1999: Lil’s maple almost gone. Ginkgoes and Osage leaves hold at maybe half throughout town. Black pokeberries and red stems stand out against the brown, shriveled leaves below them. Three Shasta daisies are still in bloom, and some small-flowered rudbeckia.

2002: Cardinal at 6:55 a.m. I noticed today that the Korean lilac leaves were completely down. Red burning bush foliage still full. Meal moths, their generation born about October 20th, continue to infest the house.

2003: My ginkgoes in Wilberforce are shedding, but they still have most of their leaves. A little catmint, three yellow roses, some butterfly bush, a few late-seeded purple coneflowers, and five full-blooming scabiosa still flower in the north garden. Two late yellow day lilies in the south garden. Several crows sighted today; I think they’re coming back.

2005: The Danielsons’ tree is down, and Mrs. Timberlake’s is half shed. Lil’s maple and Jerry and Lee’s hold at the top of their color. The burning bush is shedding by Lil’s driveway, and Jerry and Lee’s sweet gum is just starting to turn. In the garden, most hostas and astilbe are deep gold and are decaying quickly. The Korean lilac has yellowed and has lost maybe half its leaves. The standard lilacs were hurt by the frost, are half bare. The red mulberry is thinning, and the hackberries have been down for several days. Some stonecrop leaves are yellowing, a rich, full broth color. Along the east fence, two large purple clematis flowers remain open. Along the north wall, Jean cut a perfect pink rose. In the warm evening, a few whistling crickets were whistling. In the southwest, the new moon lay over Dayton with Venus.

2006: Jean was shopping near the Dayton Mall, and as she walked across the parking lot, she saw a monarch butterfly flying south.

2007: Soft but blustery morning, purple clouds against Carolina blue sky, against deep orange-golden maples as the barometer falls and a cold wave approaches from Michigan. In Mateo’s yard, a few small white asters and chicory flowers still bloom. Lil’s maple is half turned now, and silver maples are shades of palomino tan all along the highway. My ginkgoes at school are all turning pale ochre. Korean lilac leaves are a weak yellow green, maybe thinned out by half. A few snow flurries in the afternoon. Several Christmas cacti blossoms open in the greenhouse.

November 6th
The 310th Day of the Year

A man must attend to Nature closely for many years to know when, as well as where, to look for his objects, since he must always anticipate her a little. Young men have not learned the phases of Nature; they do not know what constitutes a year, or that one year is like another. I would know when in the year to expect certain thoughts and moods, as the sportsman knows how to look for plover.

Henry David Thoreau

Sunrise/set 7:09/5:28 Day's Length: 10 hours 19 minutes
Average High/Low: 55/37 Average Temperature: 46
Record High: 78 - 1975 Record Low: 19 - 1908

Weather
November 6th brings a 15 percent chance for a high in the warm 60s and a 40 percent chance for 50s; chillier 40s, however, occur 35 percent of the days, and highs just in the 30s come 10 percent of the time. Odds are better for clouds than sun: on this date the skies are clear to partly cloudy only 40 percent of the years. There is frost this morning 45 percent of the years in my record. Rain occurs 30 percent of the days, snow on 15 percent.

Natural Calendar
Sometimes a second-spring parsnip is ready to bloom. Most of the milkweed pods have opened. A few blackberry bushes are bare; others are still red and purple. Mums are past their best, but the witch hazels are usually still flowering.

Daybook
1982: All the white mulberry leaves are gone, down in a single day. Comfrey is still green and strong. New burdock, two feet tall, is bright green. Most grape leaves have fallen. Raspberry leaves are dark gray and withered.

1986: Cardinal heard at 9:02 a.m.

1987: The woods were so quiet today, late fall must have come last night. Mock orange thinning. Pecan gone. No fish biting at Sycamore Hole.

1988: First snow, one inch, as late fall pushes through with a sudden plunge in barometric pressure.

1990: Yesterday, a huge low-pressure system cut away the last ridge of middle fall. All my magnolias fell together, lay in a pile by the door. The ginkgoes outside my window turned between the 2nd and the 5th, and then they all came down today in 40 mph gusts. Late leaf-drop is finally taking place almost everywhere. Even Lil's stubborn maple shed all its leaves today. Only the white mulberry is holding. Geese fly over 5:20 p.m.

1992: Late fall came today, an inch of snow, wet, heavy flakes, highs only in the 30s.

1993: Skirts of gold all around the ginkgoes at Wilberforce today.

1995: Ginkgo leaves fell all at once last night. At home, the red mulberries and the rose of Sharon leaves along the south edge of the property have come down within the past two or three days, all the summer's privacy now gone.

2000: Red oak down at school, English oak almost half shed, ginkgo three fourths. At 4:45 p.m. as I leave, hundreds of crows fly over, probably heading home for the night. In the yard, red mulberry, rose of Sharon, quince half to three-fourths fallen.

2002: Cardinals singing back and forth at 6:55 a.m., the sky clear, 32 degrees. South to Wilmington: still very strong color. We are maybe at October 27th as far as “average” foliage conditions are concerned.

2003: Throughout the countryside, most of the leaves are down except for the bright yellow Osage, a few yellow maples, a few brown oaks.

2004: Robins were migrating through the yard this morning. Starlings filled the back trees at noon.

2005: One of the large jade trees in the greenhouse started to bloom this morning.

2006: In the middle of all the fallen leaves near the shed, one violet cyclamen continues to bloom. Jerry and Lee’s sweet gum tree has all its color and is starting to shed a little; the soft maples in the alley are half down; the Dayton Street beech tree is just about full gold. No buds on the jade trees this year. A cardinal sang this morning at 7:00. Robins still heard peeping in the back woods. Moya said she saw a pheasant between our yards one afternoon last week. Could it have been a turkey?

2007: Black walnuts are falling quickly from the Limestone tree, and two of Mateo’s last four came down yesterday. Temperatures finally have fallen below normal, and frost comes almost every morning. Lil’s tree is in full color now, and the Danielsons’ is full and almost half down; Mrs. Timberlake’s is almost full. Sparrows are ravenous at the feeders. Starlings sit in Don’s tree most every morning, starling chatter throughout the alley. Two yellow tea roses cut from the garden last week continue bright, wide open.
***
There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness…. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fount of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly, saluting me with indescribable humility.

Thomas Merton

November 7th
The 311th Day of the Year

It is rarely that an artist succeeds in painting unmistakably the difference between sunrise and sunset; and it is equally a trial of his skill to put upon canvas the difference between early spring and late fall.

John Burroughs

Sunrise/set: 7:11/5:27 Day's Length: 10 hours 16 minutes
Average High/Low: 54/36 Average Temperature: 45
Record High: 76 - 1938 Record Low: 20 - 1903

Weather
Highs in the 70s occur five percent of the time on this date. Fifteen percent of the afternoons reach into the 60s; forty percent make the 50s; thirty-five percent make the 40s; ten percent rise only into the 30s. Skies are overcast 45 percent of the time, and freezing temperatures strike four days out of ten. Rain falls only 25 percent of the days; snow comes less than one day in ten.

Natural Calendar
This is the middle of second spring. When the temperature reaches 60, and cardinals are singing, and the starlings are clucking in the back trees, November seems like April. Waterleaf is strong on the slopes. Celandine is blooming in the garden, along with a few dandelions, some chickweed, some violets. Seeds sprout in rotting logs. The rivers are typically high, flushed from autumn rains.

Daybook
1982: Periwinkle emerges from the brown leaves in the wind. Dandelions, wild mallow still in bloom, Osage leaves thinning, golden. Honeysuckle leaves offer the only green in the woods. Japanese honeysuckle in the front yard unaffected by the cold.

1983: Ginkgoes hang on outside my office window. Lil's tree still has half its leaves.

1984: Lil's tree is yellow green, still has almost all its leaves.

1985: Late ginkgoes almost solid yellow, and strong. Many late maples also full yellow.

1986: Cardinal sings at 8:10 a.m. Peach leaves all gone. Cherry tree gold and green, half shed, Osage dropping leaves quickly, Lil's maple has collapsed. Chubs steal bait at Sycamore Hole. The high canopy is down except for the Osage. Fields are gray with goldenrod seeds. Huge flock of geese flies over the Glen at 5:21 p.m. A few crickets are singing.

1988: Now the pussy willow is half thinned, cherry is down and the apple. Sudden leaf-fall on my honeysuckles: branches of orange berries against the last yellow maple.

1990: I debate with myself sometimes whether or not this is the most beautiful week of the year. I always decide finally that it is not. But there are afternoons, the warm and rainy ones in the deeper woods, that argue convincingly for their place at the pinnacle of the year. The last honeysuckle, dogwood, spicebush, boxwood, elms, sugar maples, garlic mustard, sweet Cicely, yarrow, and aster leaves glow with an April light. Altogether, they produce in me a feeling of renewal without the trauma of winter, a sudden reprieve, an immediate, sweet compensation for the death of the year. I look down into the valleys toward Yellow Springs Creek, and I feel all of the hope of April, with none of its demands.

1993: Last night, after more cold and more snow, the white mulberry leaves came down, punctuating the punctual arrival of late fall. I collected most of the last mums from the south garden this morning, and Jean made bouquets for the whole house. The final roses were cut along the north garden wall, a red, a pink, and a yellow.

2001: The quince is yellow green and more than half down. The lilac has been hurt by the frost, its leaves shriveled and dark. The Korean lilac’s foliage is completely gone, after shedding through the end of October. The beeches on High and Dayton streets have their full, rich rusty color now, but the tree line in the countryside is leaner, more maples and ginkgoes down. The roadside grass seems paler too.

2003: Cardinal song at 6:45 this morning. The wren chattered at the same time. Then, as usual, silence. I haven’t heard blackbirds or starlings the past couple of mornings. In the past few days the pink quince and the west red mulberry have come completely undone. Lil’s maple only keeps its withered brown leaves. Tonight, a medium-sized green cricket-like creature with wings, something like a cross between a cricket and a katydid, flew and sat beside me as I worked at the greenhouse table. She had escaped the deadly cold forecast for tonight. I talked to her about the flowers and the plants around us, the benefits of this paradise.

2004: A soft day, high near 60, sky perfectly blue. I was cutting the last zinnias and Mexican sunflowers when a monarch butterfly came south over Mrs. Lawson’s fence.

2006: The spirea leaves are turning now, some red, some gold. Hosta leaves melting quickly into the ground. Some pear trees starting in Wilmington as beeches deepen. Robins still peeping throughout the day. I found a small camel cricket in the bathtub last night before I went to bed; it was gone in the morning.

2007: A flock of dark-eyed juncos were in the alley this morning as I walked through with Bella.

November 8th
The 312th Day of the Year

Time may be too short for our Designs...
The World itself seems in the wane.

Sir Thomas Browne

Sunrise/set: 7:12/5:26 Day's Length: 10 hours 14 minutes
Average High/Low: 54/36 Average Temperature: 45
Record High: 73 - 1975 Record Low: 17 - 1971

Weather
The weather today is generally warmer than it was yesterday: chances for highs in the 60s increase to 40 percent, often because of the approach of a low-pressure trough preceding the month’s third cold front. Thirty percent of the highs are in the 50s, twenty-five percent are in the 40s, ten percent in the 30s. Sixty-five percent of the time, mornings stay above freezing. Clouds cover the sky three days in ten; the chances for rain are 30 percent, for snow ten percent.

The Week Ahead
Late fall almost always arrives this second week of November. It is a transition season during which the last leaves fall, skies darken, wind speed increases, hard frosts put and end to the year's flower and vegetable cycles, and harvest is completed on the farm.
Throughout the Midwest, late fall's high temperatures shift decidedly into the 40s, and lows average 32 or worse. High-pressure systems, accompanied by clouds and rain or snow, typically arrive around the 9th and the 14th. The 9th is historically the wettest day of November's second week. The 11th and 12th are the sunniest, and the 13th is the driest. One partly cloudy afternoon in the 60s or 70s comes six years out of ten during this time of the year, but cold and precipitation are the norm.

Natural Calendar
Many of the Osage orange, silver maples, oaks, beeches, pears, and sweet gums continue to hold their leaves. More ginkgoes have collapsed, however, and the last white mulberry foliage is about to come down. Hawthorns, crab apples and many honeysuckles are bare, branches marked by red berries left behind, bright against the dull brush. Scarlet rose hips and the buds of pussy willows too stand out. Mock orange and forsythia are thinning; their leaf fall measures the progress of the last phase of autumn.

Daybook
1983: All flowers gone in the North Glen. High oaks keep their chocolate-brown leaves. Maples and ginkgoes hang on at about half in the village. Thin-leafed waterleaf has grown back strong, ready for spring.

1984: The late ginkgoes on Brush Row and on Dayton Street are gold and holding. Celandine, chicory and cheeses still bloom in the yard, and hemlock by the west border. Forsythia has been blooming in the east row for a week or so. Osage leaves are yellowing, as are the white mulberry. Kale and chard are still thriving in the changeable weather: one day frost, then rain, a day in the 70s, then one in the 30s. The grass is still growing.

1985: Robin seen near Wilberforce. Starlings chirp most of the days. Late ginkgoes lose more leaves, and all but a few magnolia leaves are gone. Our cherry is turning brown at the edges.

1986: Ginkgo near full yellow. Autumn violets still bloom. Silver maples about half gone. The rest of the tree line is bare except for the osage (a third to half gone) and a few late sugar maples, some of which are still full color.

1987: Branches essentially bare throughout the area. Only willows and a few Osage hold. Crickets still sing late in the evening after eight of the warmest November days in the last decade.

1988: Zigzag goldenrod leaves: purple brown and gone to seed.

1990: Cold and clear. Blackbirds flocking along Wilberforce-Clifton, woolly bear caterpillars crossing the black road, which has warmed in the morning sun. Most all the white mulberry leaves fell last night after a hard freeze of 24 degrees.

1992: Blue jays heard in the back woods. One impatiens is still blooming next the house. Blue flag foliage yellows now, rapid honeysuckle leaf fall.

1993: A cardinal sang at 6:55 this morning, then again more songs closer to dawn. Are the young males experimenting now with their spring voice?

1997: This morning, a cardinal sang when I walked outside a little after 7:00 a.m. One cricket chirped for a few seconds, then there was just the sound of the wind and the cars on the freeway six miles west. The maples have held on all week - even the weak front yard maple is only half fallen. A bouquet of pink and violet achillea picked this morning, and a purple four-petal mystery plant (maybe money plant) that has survived the frosts to bloom in November. Some Siberian iris transplanted this afternoon, and the north hedge cut back to allow more room for flowers. This afternoon in the wind, I sat and watched gusts of leaves flying over the roof into the pond.

2000: Chicory and celandine, white and red clover, dandelion, early witch hazel all in bloom. One cricket in the rain at 11:00 p.m.

2001: One cricket singing in the cold at 6:15 p.m.

2002: My shed-window sugar maple still holds. Lil’s maple holds. Red mulberry blackened by the frost, rose of Sharon shriveling. Butterfly bush still green, but honeysuckles are losing ground, and the bamboo is becoming lightly mottled.

2003: This morning after a freeze of 25 degrees, the yellow upper leaves of the white mulberry began to clatter to the ground as soon as the sun warmed their stems. A rush of leaves, sudden autumn, no equivocation.

2004: All the ginkgoes are down at Wilberforce except for the one by my office window – it is holding at about a third. Several flocks of geese and ducks noticed on the farm ponds between here and Washington Court House.

2005: Honeysuckle yellowing, redbuds all down, my ginkgo at school full yellow, many sweet gums along the way to Wilmington are red and strong, poplars gold and three-fourths gone.

2006: In the front garden, snow-on-the-mountain is coming back, starting to replace the yellowing, wilting leaves of the sedum. The honeysuckle at the front arbor is almost bare, but the honeysuckle hedge along the north property line still keeps out Dayton Street. Lil’s maple holds just a handful of leaves. In the greenhouse, I have three tomatoes, each about an inch across, and the Christmas cacti are all in totally full bloom.

2007: A cardinal sang in the twilight of 6:55 this morning. The trees along the road to Wilmington had passed peak color over the past weekend, but many still hold their leaves. A buck ran in front of the truck past Xenia.

November 9th
The 313th Day of the Year

White as meal the frosty field,
Warm the fireside haven.
Not to autumn will I yield;
Not to winter even.

Robert Lewis Stevenson

Sunrise/set: 7:13/5:25 Day's Length: 10 hours 12 minutes
Average High/Low: 53/36 Average Temperature: 45
Record High: 79 - 1975 Record Low: 22 - 1957

Weather
On ten percent of the days, highs reach 70 degrees; on 20 percent they reach the 60s; on 35 percent they reach 50. Forties come one fourth of the time, with 30s ten percent of the time. Frost strikes 45 percent of the nights. The sun fails to appear about half the time, rain falls 55 percent of the years, snow just once in a quarter century. Today and tomorrow together bring more precipitation than any other two days of the month.

Natural Calendar
In the lower Midwest, the second and third weeks of November are usually the height of rutting season for white-tailed deer. The activity level increases for deer during courtship and breeding, especially during nighttime hours. In town, almost every junco has arrived for winter. Craneflies are half grown, become more obvious as the only insects out in the cool weather, spinning in the sun. Starlings sing and sparrows chant off and on from early morning through the afternoon.

Daybook
1983: Covered Bridge: Grass still grows, one dandelion in bloom, nettles new. Only yellowing Osage foliage is left. Seeds sprouting in rotten logs, sweet smell of fallen leaves and autumn ground.

1984: After a rainy cool day, craneflies mating on the picnic table.

1985: Geese fly over at 5:06 p.m.

1987: Mock orange almost gone.

1988: Cardinal sings at 7:30 a.m. Some goldenrod on Corry Street still has color.

1989: The poplar outside my south window has come apart in this windy week. Lil’s maple still has almost all its leaves. She's got the latest maple in town. The white mulberry (my guide, from my back door, for the position of the sun at summer solstice) is still green, but the forsythia bushes along the house are starting to thin out. I can see through to the street now.

1990: Geese fly over the yard at 8:00 a.m. The last ginkgoes fall at Wilberforce.

1991: Large flocks of blackbirds downtown Dayton, along the river,
over the highway.

1992: White mulberry holds on in the back yard, small-flowered yellow mum in full bloom in the front garden.

1997: Forsythia thinning. My maple finally all comes down. Lil’s maple starting to unravel. Leaves raked today, probably more than three fourths of the harvest. Cardinals singing this morning near 7:00, crows calling. Geese are all over the DeWine Pond shore.

1999: Four deer seen crossing Dayton-Yellow Springs Road at 6:30 this evening. I almost hit one of them on the way to tai chi; on the way back, I saw a dead doe by the side of the road. Rutting season.

2000: Crows at 6:58 a.m. Birch, magnolia and sweet gums three-fourths down. Skunk tonight, the third in recent nights.

2001: Phil calls: buzzards are still gathering at sundown at the corner of President Street and Orton Road.

2002: A cardinal sang once at 6:52 a.m., then once more around 8:00. Leaves are yellowing quickly on the blue flag iris, the Stella d’Oro lilies, and the hosta. Honeysuckle leaf-drop accelerating, quince almost all down. Danielson’s maple is about seven-eighths fallen, my workshop-window maple is also almost down. The back Osage is still green. Comfrey is lush, two feet high, enjoying second spring.

2003: Almost all the white mulberry leaves are down now. The last red mulberry tree is bare as well. Blackbirds heard in the back trees this morning. Starlings fill the wires along the roads to Dayton.

2005: Most honeysuckles are down now, red berries prominent. Rose of Sharon fell this week. Most leaves of the pink quince dropped today.

2006: Mild in the 60s today. A cardinal sang at 6:53 this morning, and saw a bright yellow butterfly outside of Wilmington. Two deer stood in my way as I drove to work along Grinnell Road, one a fat buck. Downtown, the decorative pear trees have their full colors, red and gold and rusty brown; shedding is underway. In the greenhouse, some of the Christmas cacti have begun to fade – especially the red plant.

2007: Mateo’s black walnut tree has lost all but one walnut. The Limestone Street tree keeps just a handful. Mateo’s red mulberry foliage is yellow green now, Lil’s maple full color, Danielsons’ darker and shedding, Mrs. Timberlake’s full, and the magnolia next door to her is mottled and thinning. The Korean lilac pale and about two-thirds down.

November 10th
The 314th Day of the Year

A true November day, chill and wet. I walked in the sodden woods, looking for walnuts.... How good to sit by the fire on such a day as this, and how good to go out again in the wet.

Harlan Hubbard

Sunrise/set: 7:14/5:24 Day's Length: 10 hours 10 minutes
Average High/Low: 53/35 Average Temperature: 44
Record High: 70 - 1975 Record Low: 19 - 1957

Weather
High temperatures reach 60 on 20 percent of the afternoons, 50 on 40 percent, 40 on 35 percent, 30 on five percent. Rain comes four days in ten, snow one in ten. The sun shines 60 percent of the years. Morning lows drop below freezing almost half the time.

Natural Calendar
Landmark trees that are especially prominent or familiar measure the end of fall better than almost any other gauge. Here in Yellow Springs, ginkgoes are excellent markers for the end of October and the beginning of November. The white mulberries are a little later, and they are equally dramatic in the way they suddenly collapse. Silver maples, oaks, and beeches can persist well into the middle of November, and the decorative pears into the first part of December.

Daybook
1982: Water striders on the river this afternoon. Squirrels chasing each other in a sycamore. Cricket heard at the covered bridge.

1983: Ginkgo leaves collapse all at once, down in a golden cover around the trunk.

1985: Geese flew over at 8:16 a.m. This afternoon I went out past the covered bridge in the rain, up the west ridge above the river. The water was high and running fast, the main branch was muddy, leaves tumbling in the current, tips emerging like feeding fish. Honeysuckle leaves were a tawny green beside me. The pink leaves of a dogwood were shining through the wet undergrowth, as exotic as the dogwood flowers of April. My feelings can't distinguish the decaying leaves from the spring blossoms. That's the illusion of second spring, the emotional misreading of the remaining colors, choosing to interpret them as signs of rebirth instead of the last fragments of the summer's whole.

1986: Geese fly over at 8:30 and 9:25 a.m. My ginkgo is gone in a pile of bright gold. Some pear foliage downtown has patches of reddish brown.

1988: Almost all the last leaves disappear in a thunderstorm, an inch of rain, winds past 35 miles an hour. Pussy willow, apple, cherry, my poplar blown clean. All but the oaks and willows in the countryside are down. One Osage in the back holds. At Sycamore Hole, the river is as high as I've ever seen it, no hint of the early summer’s drought.

1990: Large flock of geese goes over at eight o'clock this morning.

1993: Cardinals still singing off and on in the mornings. Dozens of robins at the entry to South Glen, still migrating. One dandelion seen today at Wilberforce, a few aster flowers.

1997: Lil’s maple has lost about half its leaves. Silver olives are three-fourths gone along the freeway. Honeysuckles down to a fourth. Witch hazel full bloom. Many maples still full color now. When I stood in the back yard this morning before sunrise, the street light got in my eye for the first time since May.

1999: Lil’s maple and all the maples of High Street are down, have been for almost a week.

2001: Many of the remaining leaves on Lil’s maple have shriveled and lost their color without falling, the first time I ever remember that happening. Usually her tree comes down with leaves still soft and pure yellow.
To Jacoby in the late afternoon with Bella, our border collie pup, temperature mild, the sky streaked with high cirrus, the sun low and almost white, the woods floor bright with chickweed, moneywort, buttercup, mint, henbit, garlic mustard, some waterleaf and leafcup. Wind in the high trees sometimes shutting out the sounds of the highway to the west. Two tan moths. The call of one flicker or pileated woodpecker. Tattered seed tufts on the asters and white snakeroot.
I came across a dead vole, sleek and fat, curled on the moss on top of a stone by the path. He looked as if he were sleeping, having found the perfect bed, oblivious to the daylight and to our presence.
At the swamp, below the stark dead trees, new dark green ragwort, dock, purple skunk cabbage, fresh water cress filling the clear rivulets. We walked across the spongy surface of the marsh on clumps of green grass and lanky thistles, between the foliage of the April iris, the old stalks of ironweed, disheveled cattails, and the sprawling remnants of angelica.
I remembered wild ginger here in April, cowslip and toad trillium in full bloom, buckeyes leafing out, first garlic mustard flowering, first phlox, toothwort and spring beauties in patches, wild iris up and budding, ferns unraveling, purple and yellow and white violets everywhere
Uncovered by the disappearance of the canopy, time lay out so plain across Jacoby. The absence of the flowers seemed more illusion than truth. The swamp was like the firmament, and its particles were earthstars that revolved around my memory and contained the soul of all those other seasons which preceded and which will follow this season.

At home, one cricket heard again tonight.

2002: One cardinal singing: 6:58 to 7:06 a.m.

2004: Robins passing through this morning. The white mulberry is shedding in a different way this year, leaves coming down slowly over a period of the past week – instead of all at once.

2005: White mulberries are holding in most areas. The ginkgo is half down by my window at school, the other two have shed completely. The ginkgo on Xenia Avenue near the south end of Yellow Springs is full gold. Poplars are almost all bare between here and Wilmington. Many gum trees have collapsed. Oaks are red-brown and holding, beeches rusty brown. Hosta leaves have decayed quickly over the past week. Starlings clucking along Dayton Street at 7:45 this morning.

2006: The beech tree on Dayton Street is more than half down, and the pear trees on Xenia Avenue are shedding all at once.

2007: A cardinal was singing when I came out to start the car this morning about 7:45. In the alley, the very last of the walnuts from Mateo’s black walnut tree came down overnight. The Limestone tree is down to about a dozen. Lil’s tree is deep orange-gold today and starting to shed. To Sharonville near Cincinnati: More than half of the leaves are down, but many bright colors remain from oaks, sweet gum, sycamore, ginkgo, silver and sugar maples, smoke bush, crab apple, pear, even ash and cottonwood in this late year. Large flocks of starlings on telephone wires seen throughout the drive. One cabbage moth seen in the north garden late this afternoon.

November 11th
The 315th Day of the Year

Leaves are falling from their branches,
All their power gone.
The trees are pale and bare.
Streams run high through the empty fields.
Frost burns the last, soft sprouts.
Birds huddle in the shortest days
and mourn the chill of the sky:
Our golden sun is fleeing into Sagittarius,
Leaving days of snow and nights of ice.

Manuscript of Benedictbeurn, “De ramis cadunt folia”

Sunrise/set: 7:15/5:23 Day's Length: 10 hours 8 minutes
Average High/Low: 52/35 Average Temperature: 44
Record High: 75 - 1902 Record Low: 20 - 1980

Weather
Today’s high temperature distribution: 70s five percent, 60s ten percent, 50s thirty percent, 40s twenty percent, 30s thirty-five percent. A dramatic increase in the number of freezing predawn temperatures starts today, the lows below 32 growing from a frequency average of 40 percent up to 70 percent. Rain occurs 25 percent of the years, snow 15 percent.

Natural Calendar
With most of the leaves down, the countdown for spring is underway. One might count in all sorts of ways. One method is to keep track of the number of precipitation days: about 50 days of rain or snow lie between now and April. Another gauge is the number cloudy days: there are almost never more than 75, rarely less than 60. Or one could monitor the number of completely sunny days: there are usually about 30 (with a ten day margin for error) between the final goldenrod and the first hepatica. Another way to judge the advance of winter is an enumeration of cold fronts: there will be around 30 in all, 20 of which will coincide with changes in the phase of the moon.

Daybook
1983: The white mulberry in the back yard is coming down quickly now. A few Queen Anne's lace still in bloom along Wilberforce-Clifton Road.

1984: The white mulberry begins to lose its leaves, but they are still mostly green. First snow. First snowball made. Kale and chard thriving in the changeable weather, one day frost, then rain, then a day in the 70s. The grass still growing.

1985: How many notes and observations are enough? There are never enough.

1986: From my east window, I see the ginkgo leaves all came down last night with the first snow. The white mulberry dropped all its leaves overnight too. Bradford pears trees uptown are more stubborn; they darken slowly, browning and stiffening.

1990: Geese flew over about 8:00 this morning. Almost all leaves down along the freeway, but one willow was green.

1991: Upper Grinnell: Honeysuckle is still a barrier in places. Miterwort foliage is strong. High sun on the treetops at sundown. The silver winding river, the fallen logs invisible in summer, lie below me.

1992: Many sweet gum trees are still red orange in town, have most of their leaves. The south lilac is green and full. It is still middle fall in the Osage woods.

1993: At South Glen, dozens of robins just inside the preserve at the bridge. They seem to be heading south along the tree line. I found them here a week or so ago, too. Were they separated from a main flock? Will they spend the winter? One dandelion blossom seen, milkweed pods coming completely undone, seeds adrift. Only occasional asters in very late bloom here and there, maybe one or two pale flowers to a plant.

1999: In this mildest November, the white mulberry holds at half. A few ginkgoes on High Street have kept half their leaves too.

2001: South Glen: a dozen turkey vultures circling low over the butterfly preserve.

2002: Cardinals sing at 6:53 this morning, continue on and off for an hour or so. The sun came up over the south corner of the Danielson’s house (as seen from my bedroom window). Tornadoes in Van Wert, a hundred miles north, last night. The hostas here collapsed in the overnight inch-and-a-half rain. My shed window maple leaves came down, too. More than half the honeysuckles are gone. Most of the redbuds have lost their foliage, maybe three dozen leaves hold on our tree in the north yard. Lil’s maple has about a third of its leaves. Stella d’oro lilies still have buds. The beech on Dayton Street is full copper-orange. The yearling peach still has all its leaves, but the parent tree beside it has been bare for weeks. Robins whinnying in the back lot.

2007: Gray and rainy today, the High Street maples are shedding: the Danielsons’ the most, then Lil’s, then Mrs. Timberlake’s. In the alley, one dandelion, one purslane, a few violet aster plants three or four inches tall with flowers, one goldenrod stalk bright gold in Don’s garden, one yellow stella d’oro, too. We’ve had many light frosts but no hard frost yet; the elephant ears are bedraggled and singed, but some are still tall and healthy. Most of the tree of heaven foliage stays, as well, burned but remaining attached to the branches. The white mulberry tree and Rachel’s ginkgo are completely green, and many of our redbuds keep their red-green leaves. Moya’s maple and the secret maple both came down about four days ago.

November 12th
The 316th Day oh the Year

All things that breathe and move with toil and sound
Are born and die; revolve, subside and swell.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Sunrise/set: 7:16/5:22 Day's Length: 10 hours 6 minutes
Average High/Low: 52/35 Average Temperature: 43
Record High: 71 - 1964 Record Low: 15 - 1911

Weather
Today’s high temperatures: 60s twenty percent of the time, 50s thirty percent, 40s thirty percent, 30s twenty percent. Frost occurs about three mornings in four. Rain falls 35 percent of the time, snow five percent. Skies are clear to partly cloudy seven days in a decade.

Natural Calendar
Summer's Hercules sets in the west before midnight, and the Great Square of autumn moves in behind it. Cassiopeia lies due south of Polaris, its deepest intrusion overhead. Aldebaran leads Orion higher each night.

Daybook
1982: Along King Street, all the Osage leaves are down. The hedgerows are bare, even the wild raspberry leaves gone. The honeysuckle holds, but it is weak and yellow. Forsythia is thinning. With the canopy gone, the sky has opened up above the river. With the sun out, the water hasn't been so blue since the first of May.

1983: Osage leaves still hold at half, many maples too, a Dayton Street ginkgo half, the backyard white mulberry half (then most fell late this afternoon), most of the poplars hanging on and green. Pecan leaves withered. Some lilac leaves burned, but stay.

1986: Cardinal sings at 7:02 this morning, then again at 7:30.

1988: Chickweed thick and green in the bare purple raspberry canes.

1990: Geese at 7:45 this morning, a robin heard later. Bright sun and mid 40s. At the covered bridge taking pictures: sky a cloudless blue reflected in the river. The brightest November greens in the waterleaf and moss and glade grasses, then the yellow green of the honeysuckles. The woods quiet except for one cricket past the skunk cabbage. Downtown, sparrows were chattering in the red pear trees. Two dandelions were blooming at the corner of Clifton and Grinnell Roads. In the garden, chard has withered from frost, lettuce still all right, kale thriving, mums almost gone.

1992: Crickets steady and loud, their vibrating song in the southwest corner of the greenhouse. They chant from late afternoon through the morning. All-day rain today, turning to a storm by late afternoon; moaning of the wind fills the house. All the white mulberry leaves had come down by the time I got home from work.

1993: At the porch light this humid and warm morning, there were craneflies spinning. Behind the back trees, sporadic cardinal song, the young males trying out their mating songs as they mature before the winter sets in.

1995: Walking our bulldog, Buttercup, this morning: Two small flocks of crows were gathering, one to the east around the Catholic church, one to the north past Kingsfield. I wondered if they had begun their congregation for solstice, but when Jeannie went up to the mall, past their traditional Christmas fields, no crows had arrived yet.

1999: The white mulberry still holds at half. Below it, the yellow leaves of the gooseneck plant match its color. In the pond, the koi are still active. Six leaves on the water lily; one red bud has been there quite a while waiting for more sun and warmth. Zinnias were killed in the last frost, but the snapdragons continue to bud and bloom. Along the expressways, honeysuckles and willows stay yellow green. Starlings and crows are flocking. Just outside of town, crows again in the soybean fields, maybe a hundred or so.

2002: Cardinal at 6:50 a.m. a raw morning, cloudy, 35 degrees.

2003: The first jade tree flowers opened this morning. Out in the countryside, the trees are bare; the past week took almost all their leaves. After a day in the 60s, barometer dropping, the wind picks up, blows hard through the evening, buffeting the truck as I drive home from Wilmington.

2005: The first red Christmas cactus flower opened last night in the greenhouse. Jerry and Lee’s sweet gum tree is full yellow. One cabbage butterfly seen flying over the back porch this mild afternoon of sun and highs in the upper 60s.

2006: More than half of the Christmas cacti are gone now. In the garden, the tufted virgin’s bower has chocolate brown leaves. The hostas have melted to slush; the New England aster leaves are gold and falling. In the countryside, banks of yellowing honeysuckles appear to be banks of April forsythia. At the south side of Mateo’s property, the privet leaves are gone, blue berries prominent. At the corner of High and Limestone streets, bittersweet hulls cover the sidewalk. This morning at 7:00, a wren chattered along the north garden.

November 13th
The 317th Day of the Year

We are sensible that behind the rustling leaves, and the stacks of grain, and the bare clusters of the grape, there is the field of a wholly new life, which no man has lived.

Henry David Thoreau

Sunrise/set: 7:17/5:21 Day's Length: 10 hours 4 minutes
Average High/Low: 52/34 Average Temperature: 43
Record High: 75 - 1909 Record Low: 13 - 1911

Weather
Highs are in the 70s five percent of the afternoons, in the 60s twenty-five percent, in the 50s twenty-five percent, in the 40s twenty percent, 30s twenty percent, and, for the first time this fall, in the 20s five percent of the time. The sun shines 75 percent of the days, frost strikes 65 percent of the mornings, rain falls just 20 percent of the time, snow ten percent.

Natural Calendar
In the swamp, fresh greens keep growing up from around the pale dead grasses. Protected by the relatively stable temperature of the streams, watercress brightens. Dock and ragwort come back around it, even when the air is bitter cold.

Daybook
1983: All the mulberry leaves were gone this morning. A third of the Osage left. Frost killed the marigolds in front of the church, but not the petunias.

1984: White mulberry leaves fell overnight.

1986: Late fall comes in hard with near record breaking cold. Killing frost takes the lettuce, beets, broccoli, and all the bedding plants. Most leaves on the forsythia badly burned. Honeysuckle leaves limp.

1987: Storm hit in the early morning. Sudden demise of all the pears. The river is higher from the all the rains, and the leaves tumble in the muddy current, tips coming to the surface, then diving like feeding fish. The wet woods are glowing, even with the fast, heavy clouds overhead. They smell of the earth and spring.

1988: Half the pear leaves remain, all red and gold in the middle of a November heat wave. Sun dominates, even cirrus gone this afternoon. On a long ride, a few asters seen, petunias, mums. Rivers high, and the grass still green, an early April color, and some pastures richer, darker. Cabbage worms found on the kale. A dandelion bloomed in the yard. A maple here and there held its leaves.

1990: Cardinal sings at 7:15 a.m. Geese fly over at 8:00. Sweet gum trees yellow and red, hold at half.

1991: Cardinal sings at 7:15 a.m.

1992: A fierce storm brings in deep cold. Cardinal sings at 6:50, clear above the wind.

1993: Walking past the Webb's house on Dayton Street, I noticed that their two witch hazels were in full bloom.

1997: The witch hazel is in full bloom. Maples suddenly collapse after the white mulberry. Sycamores too. Gum holds. Ginkgo down overnight at school. Beeches fine gold.

1999: Driving along the freeway, I caught a glimpse of a patch of yellow flowers, either dandelions, or hawkweed or lost coltsfoot. November heat wave continues, summer haze all across the horizon. Witch hazel blooming on Dayton Street.

2000: Gingko, osage, sweet gum, quince, and birch leaves mostly gone, beech and English oak half fallen, pears reddening, one red mulberry bare, one at half.

2002: Crows heard before eight o’clock this morning, first crows heard in a long time. In the greenhouse, the jade tree started to flower today (will bloom on into January). Christmas cacti all open now. Along Xenia Avenue in Yellow Springs, and on into Wilmington, 30 miles south, the pear trees are yellow, red and gold, full color and falling.

2005: The lettuce in the garden is lush and strong. The purple clematis by the east fence has four flowers.

November 14th
The 318th Day of the Year

Each thing a certain course and lawes obeyes,
Striving to turne backe to his proper place;
Nor any settled order can be found,
But that which doth within itselfe embrace
The births and ends of all things in a round.

Boethius

Sunrise/set: 7:19/5:20 Day's Length: 10 hours 1 minute
Average High/Low: 51/34 Average Temperature: 43
Record High: 76 - 1909 Record Low: 17 - 1916

Weather
Chances for a high in the 60s are 40 percent today; temperatures reach the 50s on 20 percent of the afternoons, remain in the 40s fifteen percent of the time, and are in the 30s twenty-five percent. The sun appears six days in a decade; odds for frost are the same. Rain stays away three-fourths of the days, and flurries are rare.

Natural Calendar
Water striders still swim in the sloughs. A few daddy longlegs are left in the old wood nettles and touch-me-nots. Purple deadnettle can be budding. A few bees still come out and moths emerge when the temperatures rise into the 60s.

Daybook
1982: Mums still blooming. More roadside grass is turning brown. Only a few leaves are left on the silver olives. Goldfinch seen. Cardinals sang today.

1984: After this morning's frost, the stems of the salvia exploded with cold. South Glen: One dandelion in bloom, and some pepper plants. New leafcup foliage is a foot tall now beside lush sweet rocket and hemlock. Eastern burning bush discovered in the woods, its red berries showing in the wind. A flock of blackbirds in the sycamores across the road. Most all Osage leaves gone now, some rose foliage holding on, rose hips more prominent. Osage fruits yellowing. Zigzag leaves purple with frost, seeds puffed, white. In the greenhouse, one jade tree is blooming.

1985: Honeysuckle leaves in the yard drop suddenly. Lil's tree almost gone, like most of the ginkgoes. Gum tree still keeps a few red leaves. Osage and mulberry spot the tree line with yellow green. Cherry in back yard is golden, full color, pecan turning gold, Jean's birch is half yellow, downtown pears are yellowing. Some purple deadnettle budding in the garden.

1986: Cardinal sings at 7:00 a.m.

1987: 4:15 p.m., Sycamore Hole: River very low and clear. Three chubs caught, one two-pound carp. While I fished, I heard a bobwhite call from over near the Covered Bridge; a kingfisher raced back and forth along the shore a few times. All leaves are gone now including the pear leaves.

1990: Dogwoods with red berries, most of their pink leaves gone. Red berries on the flowering crabs, and on the hawthorns, on the honeysuckles, on the bayberry, hips on the roses: it's the season of red berries.

1992: My indoor cricket is quiet this morning. Outside, the day is silent too, except for a low growl from the northwest wind. After dawn, I heard crows and sparrows, but now they're gone. The first Christmas cactus flower began to open yesterday; it's completely unraveled today.

1993: Some of the late-blooming mums still hold on in the south garden, but they are bedraggled and should be cut back. Even the youngest Queen Anne's lace has turned black now. The astilbe foliage in the east garden has finally withered. Only two rose buds left along the north garden wall. Along the sidewalk, the forsythia is still solid, most of its leaves a violet gray.

1995: Except for the pears and the beeches, a few silver maples, the low forsythia and honeysuckle, most of the leaf-drop is complete. Frost is becoming common on the grass. Crows call in the morning, but otherwise the land seems still and bare.

1999: Crows at 7:20 a.m. Half the beech leaves are gone. The white mulberry still holds in the morning, still partial to this record warm November; then in the afternoon, the leaves start coming down more quickly.

2000: Camel cricket found in the greenhouse. Around the yard, honeysuckles down to about a third. At school, magnolias three-fourths gone, Japanese maple half fallen. A few ginkgoes still have leaves. Some sweet gums are bare, but a few still keep most of their deep red leaves.

2005: Robins feeding on honeysuckle berries and whinnying in the High-Stafford Street alley, cardinal calling, when I walked with Bella there at 7:45. Osage and white mulberry leaves hold throughout the neighborhood. Beech rich golden brown keeps its leaves.

2006: I thought the beeches and pears were all falling a couple of days ago. Now I see they’ve held on, red-orange-gold throughout town and the countryside. A camel cricket was sitting on the wall by our bed tonight; I took it to the greenhouse.

2007: The Danielsons' and Mrs. Timberlake’s maples are down, and Lil’s keeps only a few leaves. The pears and beaches are full red and orange gold. In the past week, the honeysuckle and the river birch leaves have thinned dramatically, and all the Korean lilac leaves came down. Don’s burning bush has started to shed, but at the strip mall plantings, the decorative red maples and the complementary rows of burning bush shrubs are still full bright red.

November 15th
The 319th Day of the Year

Coldly, sadly descends
The autumn evening. The field
Strewn with its dank yellow drifts
Of withered leaves, and the elms,
Fade into dimness apace.

Matthew Arnold

Sunrise/set: 7:20/5:19 Day's Length: 9 hours 59 minutes
Average High/Low: 51/34 Average Temperature: 42
Record High: 74 - 1909 Record Low: 13 - 1916

Weather
Overcast conditions are the rule at the beginning of the third week of November, the sun failing to appear 60 percent of the time. Rain falls 60 percent of all the years too, and snow comes ten percent. Highs reach the 60s three days out of ten, the 50s two days in ten, the 40s two days, the 30s three days. Morning lows drop below freezing more than half the time.

The Week Ahead
The 15th, 19th, and 20th are the days this week most likely to be mild with highs in the 60s. The fifth cold front of the month comes through at the end of the period, and the 21st brings a slight possibility for a high only in the 20s. The 15th is the day most likely to bring precipitation, having a 60 percent chance for rain or snow. The 20th is also fairly damp, carrying a 50 percent chance. The 18th is the driest day of the week; it has only a 20 percent chance for showers or flurries.

Natural Calendar
In warmer years, garlic mustard has grown four or five inches tall, its leaves wide and bright. Chickweed has come back all along the paths, and cress has revived in the pools and streams. Skunk cabbage has pushed up all over the swamp, some plants even opening a little. The low sun sets the new plants glowing like they glow in April. At the river’s edge, the water is rippled blue, black, green, and brown, tree branches tangled in reflections.
Warmed by the benign autumn and fed by the great stands of honeysuckle throughout the area, robins linger in town and in the woods. Juncos have arrived, and bluebirds make their last passage south along the Little Miami. Starlings cluck and whistle at sunrise, and cardinals and pileated woodpeckers and bobwhites sing off and on throughout the day. Finches work the sweet gum tree fruits, digging out the seeds from their hollows. Sparrow hawks appear on the fences, watching for mice in the bare fields. Wild turkeys wander through the south end of town.
The last crickets still sing in the warmer evenings, and the last daddy longlegs huddle together in the woodpile. Mosquitoes still wait for prey near backwaters and puddles. Asian lady beetles, more numerous this year than last, look for crevices in which to spend the winter. Late woolly bear caterpillars, most of them dark orange and black, still emerge in the sun. Cabbage moths still look for cabbage. Yellow jackets sometimes come out to look for fallen fruit.
Forsythia bushes sometimes bloom a second time when the last bluebirds come through South Glen. Yellow witch hazel graces Dayton Street. Indoors, Christmas cacti are blooming, and the first aloe flower opens in south windows. In a few Yellow Springs gardens, roses, scabiosa, stella d’oro lilies and clematis still blossom.

Daybook
1983: Poplars turning, but their leaves hold on, along with the leaves of a few silver maples. Viburnum outside my building is still bright green.

1984: Mountain maples at Antioch more than half down. Magnolia leaves on the tree by my door: all but 20 dropped yesterday.

1987: Cardinal sings 11:25 a.m. A small carp, two chubs caught at five o'clock, Sycamore Hole.

1988: Mill Habitat, 55 degrees: Crickets and cardinals singing, a snake sunning on the path near the dam, flies, moths, and honeybees out. Hills of yellow-green honeysuckle, the color of second spring; above them turquoise sky, reflecting in the river, doubling the green, like April in the rain. Saw my first squirrel eating Osage fruit, had always just seen the remnants, the results of their scavenging. A great blue heron flew upstream, chickadees, nuthatches chattering. Occasional dandelions blossoming. At home, mother-of-millions headc up to bloom.

1989: Geese fly over just before sunset.

1990: At Caesar Creek, temperatures near 70, pure sun and south wind for a trip upstream. Water low and clear, quiet, brown and blue. On the lake, hundreds of sea gulls, some loons and black ducks. In the greenhouse, the first Christmas cactus flowers. In the back yard, the white mulberry still keeps its leaves. Some ginkgoes still hold on in town, and the decorative pear leaves are red and beginning to fall. Cardinals have been singing a little each morning before dawn, then they become quiet. Geese fly over every evening just before sunset. Most leaves are gone now except for the honeysuckle. A few crickets are still singing.

1991: Sparrows swarm in the schoolyard, pigeons circle the tower at Wilberforce.

1992: Cold, quiet morning, half an inch of snow on the ground, nothing moves outside. This afternoon: honeysuckle leaves fall quickly now, lilac thinned to just an upper core.

1993: Decorative pears along Xenia Avenue and Dayton Street are a full deep gold. The leaves are gone from the red jewel crabapples.

1997: The Osage leaves have almost all come down now, the honeysuckle very thin, most of the mock orange fallen. Lilacs hold at maybe half. First real snow today, but only a little sticks.

1999: The white mulberry in the back yard sheds more. At Wilberforce, my ginkgo is still yellow green, hardly beginning leafdrop, the latest it has ever held its leaves (and the ash held far longer than usual this year too). The other ginkgo is shedding, but still has maybe half its foliage.

2000: My library Japanese maple in Springfield sheds all but a third of its leaves. Still fragments of burning bush beside it.

2001: Going through my old notebooks today, I found a poem I wrote 40 years ago this November. It has almost come true, all but the eggs:

I will have bound my books in leather,
built a tower, fashioned gardens,
planted shrubs and trees,
dug a pond for fishes,
seeded woods with eggs for upland game.

2003: To northern Ohio in light rain with a light southwest wind: The roadside grass was losing its color. The trees – all but a few willows and silver maples – were bare. Only the honeysuckles and evergreens gave life to the fencerows and yards. Winter wheat was deep emerald green, but it had none of the luster that characterized it on sunny days earlier in the fall. The ponds were dull and gray, the newly plowed fields dark and sodden. I saw only two crows, a small flock of sparrows, and one medium-sized flock of starlings during the entire 320-mile trip.

2006: The front honeysuckle is bare: only red berries there, the gauge of winter passage. Hosta breakdown continues, leaves disappearing quickly into the ground. Stonecrop diminishing, shrinking, falling. Lilac leaves maybe half down. Jerry and Lee’s sweet gum two thirds down, golden.

2007: The young maple in the boulevard by the driveway has finally come down; it parallels Lil’s tree, is maybe one of its children. The viburnum by the north side of the house has lost most of its leaves. The hostas continue to yellow, following last year’s schedule. I put a cover over the pond, anticipating the quince leafdrop – its leaves all yellow-gold, but the northwest wind has kept them to the south of the pond. At Wilberforce, my ginkgoes are pale yellow green, but hold most of their leaves.