October 1st
The 274th Day of the Year

Hail, old October, bright and chill,
First freedman from the summer sun!

Thomas Constable

Sunrise/set: 7:31/7:18 Day's Length: 11 hours 45 minutes
Average High/Low: 72/50 Average Temperature: 61
Record High: 93 - 1897 Record Low: 31 - 1895

Weather
The first day of October brings highs in the 80s on 25 percent of the years, 70s on 40 percent of the years (it is the last time this season that the combined possibility for 70s and 80s reaches so high), 60s on 25 percent, 50s on 15 percent. Skies are completely overcast and rain occurs 40 percent of the days. Nighttime lows are in the mild 50s or 60s more than half the time, and frost comes only once in a decade.

The Natural Calendar
October, like September, subtracts about an hour and a quarter from the day's length. On the first of the month, the time between sunrise and sunset is 11 hours and 45 minutes. Four and a half weeks later, only ten and a half hours remain.

Daybook
1982: End of the raspberry season this year, only a few berries left for nibbling.

1983: Raspberries still coming in strong. Some tomatoes still ripening, should last at least through the middle of the month, and well into November indoors on the kitchen sill. Crickets still sing. Some Japanese honeysuckle still blooming.

1986: Cardinal sings at 7:19 a.m.

1987: First light frost of the year.

1989: I work outside, surrounded by sparrow and cardinal song, crickets, robin migration messages, crows. The blue dayflowers have now faded from time and disease. Peony stalks half decayed.

1990: The ash tree outside my window has lost 90 percent of its leaves. Grackles in the ginkgo, the sky bright, air crisp.

1991: Aster novii belgii completely gone now. And sudden advent of early color in the tree line. Some maples already turned, brilliant patches of orange here and there. Violet, red, deep purple poison ivy and Virginia creeper outline the changes. My ginkgo is full of acorn size fruit. Locusts and ash are well along in their transformation. More and more box elder, cherry, apple, and mulberry weathering.

1992: Starlings in the trees every afternoon. I watch the drying of goldenrod until it blends with the dead Bermuda grass, foxtail, smooth brome, orchard grass. The black walnut trees are bare. One blue lobelia, one tall bellflower, some red clover, scattered white snakeroot along Jacoby Branch. Yellowing of the wild grape leaves, yellow milkweed, yellow elms, yellow shagbark hickory, yellow spicebush, a locust yellow around its red thorns, nettles bleached with age, the last huge silver spider webs hanging in the black wingstem shining in the early morning sun, timothy all fallen from its stalk, the sound of October crows.
Orion in the middle of the southern sky at 6:30 a.m. Crickets jumping in the warm grass; no daddy longlegs hunting, but red and blue dragonflies are still out by the swamp. Leaves on the path, sycamore, sassafras, dogwood, ash. More woolly bears every day. Small flocks of robins migrating.
From one woods to the next, summer to fall. One patch fully green, no signs of change. Down river a mile, another season, dark, thinning. First gold mulberry leaf. Cottonwood almost gone, staghorn sumac too. First junco seen today. High rivers early this year, and pussy willows sprouting new leaves in the heat. Fresh mint replaces cress and forget-me-nots in the marsh streams. Asters die back. Thyme-leaved speedwell goes to seed. Buzzards are in their roost by the bend of the river. Hundreds of blackbirds upstream feeding in the fallen leaves, bathing in the pebbles and sand uncovered by last month's drought.

1995: Leafturn has been late this year, just like it was in 1988, the year of our most recent drought. Even the earliest trees, the buckeyes, box elders, locusts and ashes, stayed green until the end of September. Then this weekend those early varieties began to change, and a few of the maples started in, too. Along the roadsides, purple New England asters and the tall goldenrod are still in full bloom, adding to the new autumn landscape.

1996: The Japanese beetles seem to be completing their departure this week. Taking their place, cucumber beetles hide in the roses. The mornings bring occasional robins passing through, once in a while a cardinal will call. Cricket song has replaced cicada song. Yellow jackets become more numerous, cabbage butterflies tamer or more reckless in the search for nectar and favorable sites to lay their eggs. Aphids are disappearing in the colder nights. The autumn crocus has completed its season. Most of the domestic asters started from seed in March and blooming late into September have died back. The first goldenrod has just started to rust. Soybean leaves are finally yellowing, and a few cornfields are turning brown.

1999: Cardinals sing on and off all morning.

2001: First milkweed pods seen open today as I was driving south to Washington Court House.

2003: Light frost on the roof and on the car windshields this morning. My ash tree at school is about two-thirds down, and leaf-turn on the ashes in the parking lot is well underway. One full-color maple in Wilmington. At home, pussy willow and red quince leaves have been gone for a week or so, fell with the black walnut foliage.

2004: At South Glen, the river is low after the dry September, and the undergrowth is tattered. Some of the wingstem seeds have turned brown, and the wood nettle foliate is blanching from age. One lobelia and one black-eyed Susan have decaying blossoms. All the goldenrod is rusting. Only the small heart-leafed asters, Short’s asters, and small white asters are still strong. Geese flew over about 10:15; kingfishers were chattering up and down the river throughout my walk. Mike said they might be migrating. At home in the north garden, the New England asters are almost completely done blooming for the year. Depression strong today as the moon wanes.

2005: A vole caught under the sink last night; the invasion continues (two mice in the last two weeks of September. A very small camel cricket jumped into the toilet this morning!

2007: Four deer killed along the highway, noted on the way back from Gethsemani.

October 2nd
The 275th Day of the Year

‘T is the noon of autumn’s glow,
When a soft and purple mist,
Like a vaporous amethyst,
Or an air-dissolved star,
Mingling light and fragrance, far
From the curved horizon’s bound
To the point of heaven’s profound,
Fills the overflowing sky.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Sunrise/set: 7:32/7:16 Day's Length: 11 hours 44 minutes
Average High/Low: 71/49 Average Temperature: 60
Record High: 90 - 1900 Record Low: 28 - 1908

Weather
The 2nd of October warms to the lower 80s twenty-five percent of the afternoons and to the 70s fifteen percent, a significant decline from yesterday's possibilities. Highs get into the 60s fifty percent of the time and into the 50s ten percent of the time. Sky conditions are usually less cloudy than on the 1st: 80 percent of the days are partly sunny. Rain occurs one day in three. Half the nighttime lows fall below 60 degrees, but frost is rare on this date.

Natural Calendar
After the September tier of wildflowers and the October witch hazels end their seasons, the floral year comes to a close throughout the northern half of the United States. South to the edge of the tropics, there is no sequence after autumn except spring. The land has no response other than to begin again.
Even before all the leaves come down, that commencement is underway. Purple deadnettle and garlic mustard have sprouted. Wood mint grows new stalks. Water cress revives. Waterleaf slowly reappears along the river. April’s sweet Cicely, May's sweet rockets, ragwort, dock, and poison hemlock, June’s cinquefoil and hollyhocks, July’s avens and caraway, September’s zigzag goldenrod and small-flowered asters send up fresh leaves. Sedum comes back, stalky from its canopied summer. Wild rose bushes sprout new foliage. Moss thickens on rotting logs.

Daybook
1983: Another quart of raspberries today: the patch is peaking. At South Glen, asters still full bloom, jumpseeds jumping, wood nettle yellowing, a final great blue lobelia found, a couple of touch-me-nots, some white snakeroot, one tall bell flower with four blossoms, some red clover, wild ginger more prominent now as the summer foliage dies back. Goldenrod has rusted. Bright red creeper has appeared in a yellow osage. Elaborate spider webs hang between the black wingstems, catching the light of the sun. Grape leaves are yellow and brown, milkweed yellow. Dozens of white caterpillars, timothy all fallen from its stem, all kinds of birds chanting and chattering, crows in the distance, crickets jumping in front of me in the grass.

1984: Covered Bridge: Feathery hemlock coming back, two feet high, beggartick leaves purple. No daddy longlegs seen today: it's the end of early fall for sure. Crickets strong, grasshoppers hopping. Leaf color stable, hasn't changed much in the past two weeks. Some white snakeroot fading. Waterleaf has new leaves. Jump seeds are almost all gone. Sassafras yellowing and reddening. Bur marigolds done blooming. Most Jerusalem artichokes finished along the roadsides. One catchweed blossom found, a fragment of second spring.

1985: Leaf change accelerating rapidly. Ash, hickory, tulip trees, sweet gum, sycamore, cottonwood in the center of their color.

1986: Cardinal sings at 7:09 a.m., then silence.

1988: South Glen: asters still full, goldenrod holding. Fall violets in bloom along the path. Some decline of the zigzag goldenrod. Migrating robins hardly seen at all this year. A few ironweed still blooming, most to seed. Wingstem now completely gone. Rudbeckia speciosa still golden but tattered.

1989: Wind comes in ahead of the first October cold, blowing chinquapin leaves into the river. The major turning and falling has begun. This afternoon, I was surrounded by sparrow song, robin migration song, crows calling, cardinal calling, grackles clucking in the trees behind the house, the sky clear, air crisp (Thoreau associates grackles with fall, saying they come back in the autumn after mating in the north). Sycamore hole: only one small sunfish. They take the bobber way down but stay off the hook, pulling just the end of the worm.
At Wilberforce the locusts are gold, and the reds show more now on the ashes. The hedge rows are bright scarlet. All the leaves are gone from the fragile ash by my window. The full turning and falling has begun through the countryside. Katydids and crickets loud tonight.
Uncle Bill says that lows are in the 20s now in northern Minnesota, nights staying at least ten degrees below Ohio temperatures, sometimes 15 to 20 degrees.

1991: Sycamore Hole: The river is down, filling up with leaves. Wind has been rising this afternoon, pulling off foliage from box elders and sycamores, red creepers, some elm and hickory. Not a bite at the fishing hole, no chubs or shiners stealing bait. No birds. Finally a black-capped chickadee high in a bare box elder, a long "chrrrrr", singing upside down, then off across the river.
Throughout town, today is the beginning of peak color, the maples going early, dovetailing with the height of the ash and dogwood. It will be a quick and brilliant fall, all the colors so sharp and clear, reds, pinks, violets, browns, all blended together into new colors without names, flushed, excited, vibrant. Starlings fill the trees at the dairy at sundown, chattering, loud.

1992: Ashes deeply flushed now, accelerated by the last two light frosts. Hawthorn berries noticed red at Wilberforce.

1993: At South Glen, zigzag goldenrod is still open, and most asters, scattered white snakeroot. North from Jacoby, most tall goldenrod has rusted, and the August wingstem is turning black, the ironweed seeds becoming brown and soft. Swamp bidens is lanky and old now. Burning bush all blushing in town, maybe a quarter turned. Darners seen still hunting, but the damsel flies are gone along the river. Long "V" of geese flies over at 6:40 p.m.

1995: Jean reports a "city of spiders" discovered by her kindergarten class. I've been noticing more spiders all fall. Did I fail to see them before?

1998: Cardinals at 10:00 and 11:45 this morning. Peaches have been done about a week out at the orchard.

1999: To Oakwood this afternoon, riding through the peak of the first tier of color.

2000: At my parking place in Springfield: white birch has a fringe of yellow. Ash fully gold and shedding. Some bright red in the sweet gums. Burning bush full scarlet.

2002: Dove heard at 10:15 a.m. Blackbirds fill the back trees from 10:30 through the rest of the morning. Spicebush swallowtail in the zinnias at 11:00 a.m. Katydids are still strong in the warm evening.

2003: Heavy frost this morning damages the tomatoes and the elephant ears. One woolly-bear caterpillar and a few cabbage butterflies seen today, but no monarchs, no painted ladies. Goldenrod deteriorating quickly.

2004: To Archbold and back this morning: Early full leafturn of the first tier of trees from Yellow Springs into northern Ohio. Many ashes are deep maroon or gold, some shedding. Hickories are a deep yellow, many maples bright orange, cottonwoods turned or fallen. A flock of robins and blackbirds seen above Grand Lake. Most of the goldenrod has rusted. One patch of chicory seen, many roadsides full of New England asters (even though ours have stopped blooming at home). The milkweed leaves and pods were yellow, but few plants had open pods. Maybe half the soybean fields I saw had been cut, but far less of the corn.

2006: Ash and cottonwoods in full color in and around Yellow Springs. Sudden decline of virgin’s bower. New England asters hold at their peak. One monarch seen today. One dragon fly zoomed across the yard in front of me.

2007: Walking in the alley this morning, I heard distant clucking and whistling of starlings – a few birds seen in the barest trees. At Wilberforce, my ash tree is completely down. Other ashes near the parking lot are mostly turned, but mottled this year. The small locusts are full yellow, and one maple has shed between the Administration Building and Wesley Hall. The heat of this past September continues into the new month, high in the low 80s again today. Ruby Nicholson reports seeing a hummingbird today (September 25th is their average departure date, October 16th 1925 the latest recorded by the Dayton Audubon Society). This evening, katydids and crickets were loud.

October 3rd
The 276th Day of the Year

Indeed the hours flee, and the days, and the months, and years; nor can any time gone by be salvaged, no future be foretold. Be content, therefore, with the time that you are given.

Cicero

Sunrise/set: 7:37/7:17 Day's Length: 11 hours 40 minutes
Average High/Low: 71/49 Average Temperature: 60
Record High: 93 - 1900 Record Low: 29 - 1888

Weather
For the first time since May 9th there is a 25 percent chance for a high only in the 50s. On the other hand, 30 percent of the days rise to the 60s, thirty percent to the 70s, and 15 percent to the 80s. The sky is clear to partly cloudy 90 percent of the time, and rain occurs just one day in four. Morning lows in the 20s become slightly more frequent after this date, and lows below 50 degrees now occur 60 percent of the time.

Natural Calendar
In mild Octobers and Novembers, catchweed blooms. Cardinals briefly renew their late-winter songs. Cabbage moths reappear. Parsnips, violets, chickweed, celandine, dandelions, clover, sow thistles, and even forsythia blossom. The grass continues to grow on the Glen paths, glowing in the low sun. Winter wheat creates patches of bright green in the countryside. In the swamps, skunk cabbage comes up again. In the garden, red knuckles of rhubarb sometimes push to the surface.

Daybook
1982: Milkweed bursting its seedpods along the way to Wilberforce. Almost all trees have some color change now. Some maples are bright red and orange. Greenhouse tomato season begins: four picked.

1983: White snakeroot and goldenrod deteriorating, Queen Anne's lace finished in most fields. Only the asters are still in bloom. More milkweed bursting.

1985: Garlic mustard is sprouting along the back shrubs in the rain. (Note – a plant biologist from Wright State University has told me that garlic mustard only sprouts in early spring, around April 1st.) Starlings seem to be more abundant. Lisa reports her trees full of birds, but she hasn’t seen any yellow jackets yet this year!

1987: First phase of early peak leaf color began today, the best time for the ash and locusts. Goldenrod gone in many places. Beggarticks and amaranth going to seed.

1988: Major turning time for ashes in Wilberforce, and all the small locusts in the parking area are yellow.

1989: Yellow hibiscus in the greenhouse have been opening regularly for about a week, coming out at dawn, closing at sunset. Six weeks until paperwhites. Seven to amaryllis.

1991: Sun rising deep red through the rain.

1992: Geese fly over at 8:30 a.m. The squirrel in the back locust trees keeps up his steady whine through the morning. Zinnias about three-fourths gone, deteriorating more quickly now. All the rest of the carrots pulled, still fresh and tasty. The pepper plants are full of peppers, finally, after six months of procrastination. Tomatoes continue to come in. A small bowl of raspberries picked this morning. Small white asters declining throughout the yard.

1993: This morning at about 6:30 (it was cold: ice on the windshield of the car), I heard a shrill whinny outside the back door. It was repeated for maybe five minutes.

1995: After a week of sun, there is a soft rain this morning. All my ambition of the past month has disappeared. I want to stay inside and hibernate. Cardinals have been singing on and off since breakfast. Yesterday, robins passed through the back yard, clucking their migration message.

2000: Chicory still blue along the highways. Goldenrod has passed its prime. Ironweed seed heads puff up. Box elder leaves falling more. Stonecrop flowers have gone to seed. Early fall is closing. Maple color accelerates. Some ashes on Xenia Avenue are completely gold. Oaks touched with yellow

2001: In just the last day, the tree line has developed color. The ashes have reached full turn, the cottonwoods have darkened, and enough locusts and maples have joined in to bring the whole landscape close to the edge of middle fall. Enough other leaves have come down to reveal most of the scarlet creepers. Red and gold sumac and poison ivy are more prominent. The soybean fields contribute to the effect instead of standing out, separate from the green wood line like they did a week ago. In Columbus, my white oak has more bleached out sections. The upper part of my red maple is half turned.

2003: South Glen after a light freeze: I walked through the sun and the melting frost, the sound like that of a gentle rain. One catbird seen in an osage tree. Scattered maples are now full orange. One small cherry tree completely red. Jean reports seeing two crows at the Antioch School campus today – the first time this year. Violet autumn crocus still bloom in front of the house across the street.

2004: Heavy frost on the truck windshield this morning, but the plants suffered no damage in the garden: the zinnias and elephant ears were untouched. Starlings fill the back trees, cackling and fluttering throughout the morning.

2006 Bindweed white and blue, full New England asters and small-flowered asters. Moyas’s maple a third, Danielsons’ has started. Large ash at the corner full ochre. Virginia creeper red. Mateo’s goldenrod rusting. Burning bush a third turned. Wilberforce ashes full and shedding. Full decline of virgin’s bower. My ash at school almost gone. One ginkgo ochering. Chicory strong. Horseweed to seed. Cosmos still bright. Some second growth of purple coneflower. Sundrops full. Ochre grape leaves. Cottonwoods full gold into Dayton. Peonies cut back, foliage decayed. Phlox cut back. Cardinal at 7:15 a.m. (EDT).

2007: The New England asters are starting to decline now, as are the Jerusalem artichokes. Virgin’s bower has been done for at least a week. The late yellow coneflowers hold on, but all the speciosas have gone to seed. The sun rose red through the clouds; the front garden with its red stonecrops and coleus glowed red. A cardinal heard about 7:40 this morning; starlings were whistling and chirping as I walked the alley (Starling Whistling Season beginning at the end of September).

October 4th
The 277th Day of the Year

There are forces in the woods, forces in the world, that lay claim to you, that lay a hand on your shoulder so gently that you do not even feel it: not at first. All of the smallest elements – the direction of a breeze one day, a single sentence that a friend might speak to you, a raven flying across the meadow and circling back again – lay claim to you, eventually, with a cumulative power.

Rick Bass

Sunrise/set: 7:34/7:13 Day's Length: 11 hours 39 minutes
Average High/Low: 71/48 Average Temperature: 60
Record High: 91 - 1900 Record Low: 28 - 1901

Weather
Highs in the 80s come 15 percent of the time, in the 70s twenty-five percent, in the 60s forty percent, in the 50s fifteen percent. And for the first time since May 9th, an afternoon only in the 40s becomes possible. Rain occurs 50 percent of all the days, the second highest percentage of the month. Frost strikes one morning in four, the highest odds until the 13th. A little more than half the nighttime lows reach below 50 degrees.

Natural Calendar
Pods of the eastern burning bush are open, and hawthorn berries redden. Wild grapes are purple, and the tree line that seemed so deep in summer just days ago is suddenly poised to break into its final color of the year. Streaks of scarlet have appeared on the oaks, shades of pink on the dogwoods. The ashes all show red or gold, the catalpas and the cottonwoods are blanching. Shagbark hickories, the tulip trees, sassafras, elms, locusts, and sweet gums change to full deep yellow, merge with the swelling orange of the maples to create a variegated archway into middle fall.

Daybook
1983: Today in the rain, the ash outside my window lost almost half its leaves. The osage at home is yellowing. The maple in front of the house is half red.

1984: Grinnell Swamp: Fall is holding back, green staying. But most white snakeroot and goldenrod are breaking down. All bur marigolds and touch-me-nots are gone. Zigzag goldenrod and asters are still full, but more of the zigzag is fading. A few maples are full yellow. Smartweed is still bright pink. Canadian thistles and ragwort are growing back.

1987: Jacoby Swamp: All goldenrod brown here. Shagbark hickory, tulip tree, sweet gum full deep yellow. Small flocks of migrating robins. So many trees bare: black walnut, cottonwood, poplar, wild cherry. Scarlet patches on the oaks. Panicled dogwood red and falling. Sassafras is old, rusted, blackberry leaves purple. Sumac bright red.

1990: Many of the young cottonwoods have lost their leaves. Some patches of peak color of ashes, hickory and maples. Crickets are still loud, katydids still calling.

1991: Peak leaf color began yesterday, coinciding with a number of opossums killed on the highway overnight. Is there a connection between the possums and the leaves? Why wouldn’t there be a connection?

1992: Crows loud before dawn. Cardinal sings at 7:50 a.m. Box elder leaves almost cover the grass in the far backyard. A few raspberries hold.

1994: Ash and locust are full color at Wilberforce. Hawthorn berries are suddenly red in the park across from my office. Violet stonecrop and mums at the best of their bloom in the east and south gardens.

1995: Yesterday afternoon coming home from work in the rain, I saw a large flock of blackbirds feeding in the fields along Wilberforce-Clifton Road. This morning at the triangle park, the silver maple along my walk had a bruise of pale yellow. West of the maples, crab apples were starting to lose their leaves. In the countryside, some cottonwoods and locusts were almost bare, ashes still full early color. At Wilberforce, the red-leaved crab apple trees had dropped much of their foliage. On the way to school, buzzards were circling and swooping around the road kills. I saw another large hawk.

1998: Crows loud at 7:27 a.m., sky dark and cloudy. Goldenrod and New England asters are still in bloom near Cincinnati. Peak color for some ash and hickory. More hawks and road kills seen.

1999: My usual autumn energy is failing me now. Is the surge only a late August and early September phenomenon? Does October bring too much nostalgia? Does it bring frustration instead of restlessness, sadness instead of anticipation?

2000: Life and time slip away while I try to accumulate them day by day here, hoping to define them by their quantity.

2001: Constant “chrrrr” of a wren in the apple tree this morning. This afternoon, I discovered the skunk’s lair on the north side of the house, the entry neatly paved in pebbles. Indoors, the Christmas cacti are budding.

2002: Russian sage, New England asters, catmint, and a few butterfly bush flowers hold along the north stone wall. Mums are still bright. Many zinnias have been killed by mildew, but others provide patches of deep color to the aging garden. The yellow rose and Queen Anne’s lace are still blossoming. The new purple clematis has six big sleek flowers. At South Glen, goldenrod has rusted, and most of the jumpseeds are gone. Buckeye and black walnut leaves are down, ashes, maples, and ashes just starting. Katydids are still singing at night.

2003: This morning at 7:50, I heard a crow, the first early morning crow of the year. A Nashville warbler with its distinctive eye ring seen in the forsythia bushes in front of the house late this morning. It was on the way to Nashville from Ontario.

2006: Ironwood tree is bare at the park, one ash shedding quickly.

October 5th
The 278th Day of the Year

Thus times do shift; each thing his turn does hold;
New things succeed as former things grow old.

Robert Herrick

Sunrise/set: 7:36/7:11 Day's Length: 11 hours 35 minutes
Average High/Low: 70/48 Average Temperature: 59
Record High: 93 - 1900 Record Low: 28 - 1901

Weather
There is a fifteen percent chance for highs in the 80s today, and fifteen percent for 70s. Sixties occur 30 percent of the afternoons, fifties 40 percent (the first time the chances for 50s have been so high since May 3rd). The sky is clear to mostly sunny 80 percent of the years, with rain coming one year in three. Frost occurs 15 percent of the mornings, and lows fall to the 30s thirty-five percent of the years, the first time that percentage has been so high this fall.

Natural Calendar
Terns and meadow larks, yellow-rumped warblers and purple martins migrate through the township. Yellow Springs crows are up at 7:15 a.m. these days; they scout the neighborhoods, waking the roosters that live at the west edge of town. Titmice chirp, and sometimes cardinals sing. Robins continue to give their short migration clucks.

Daybook
1982: South Glen: Touch-me-nots have lost their seeds. Catalpas pale, dropping foliage. A few thin leaves of the locust are spinning down. Some animal or bird making a loud, hollow, continuous chirping sound, like the beating on a hollow pole. Maybe a titmouse. Clearweed is soft yellow green. A small snake seen hunting among the leaves floating in the river.

1984: Tree coloring intensifies. Maples in front of the house are two-thirds turned.

1986: Buck Creek: Some velvetleaf and jimsonweed still flower among the asters. Sweet clover grows back with the dock and cinquefoil, yarrow, and henbit. Last night, katydids were still calling. Crickets sing all day and night. Butterflies are everywhere. All the oaks and hickories here are green. It still seems like late summer in the woods.

1989: Caesar Creek, fishing: Panfish nibble steadily along the shore line, but only one small bass, six inches, and a five-inch sunfish are the afternoon's catch. The leaves are in full early turn now. More bare branches: all black walnuts, and some poplar and cottonwood gone. Sneezeweed found in full bloom along the west bank of the river. All the other flowers faded except the asters. Beggarticks going to seed here. The water low, the colors reflected more prominently, sharper contrasts, the crisp air accentuating the distinctions. At home, some katydids and most crickets survive several nights of light to medium frost.

1990: Thimble plants unraveling, white snakeroot tufted and old. Heart-leafed asters are still in their prime. Zigzag goldenrod fading.

1992: The maple in front of the house a third gold and losing leaves quickly. Very early leaf-turn throughout town; this is a pivot time.

1995: Barometer low at 29.55 this morning. Steady rain, gusts of warm wind. My body feels lethargic, all it wants is to sit by the fire and watch the summer come down around it.

1997: Giant, the green frog, croaks before dawn. Crows wake up at 7:15 a.m. Koi in the pond are active in the hot afternoons, working the shallow water in the early morning. Just a few days ago, frost on the roof, they lay at the bottom, ignoring the food I threw in. New England asters in the yard suddenly start to die back. The violet autumn crocus across the street are falling over.

1998: Water lilies are diminishing now. Blue jay at 9:55 a.m. Cardinal at 10:19 a.m.

1999: Autumn crocus have been gone for more than a week. A spider in the bathtub this morning, running from the frost.

2000: In the rain, huge golden ash trees shed most of their leaves at school today. Mountain ash thinning, its orange berries becoming more prominent. Yellow poplar starting. The small-leaved maples that have turned so deep red are losing leaves quickly. Hickory is golden. Tiny gold warblers seen in my spruce. South to Wilmington, parallel disintegration, and sugar maples moving in to compensate for the ashes.

2001: Susi’s osage is suddenly turning gold. The maples at the corner of High Street and Dayton Street are bright red. The ginkgo at the corner of Xenia Avenue and High has started to turn. Last night, the temperature stayed in the 60s, and the katydids were loud and fast, lots of crickets too.

2003: A few Painted Lady butterflies and a few cabbage moths in the tattered zinnias today. No Monarchs seen since the end of September. Mrs. Lawson’s maple is starting to turn. Many ashes are red or gold, with a large percentage of maples coming in beside them. Most cottonwoods have come down, and all the black walnuts.

2004: A skunk has been digging in the yard for several days now; this morning at about 5:00 a.m., Bella ran out and attacked it, got severely sprayed. Skunk odor in the back yard all day (and in the house). After the abrupt leafturn of the last two weeks, a period of stability seems to be occurring, caused, perhaps by the clear and cool weather of the past week. My mood climbs slightly as the moon moves into its fourth quarter.

2005: An early blizzard has stymied Wyoming and the Dakotas.

2006: Fall moving rapidly now, all the ashes full (almost all down at Wilberforce), jumpseeds all jumped, Lil’s tree coming in, Danielsons’ at least a third turned, all the tall pink sedum are done, the red Autumn Joy holding. Mateo’s elm and red mulberry suddenly decay. Box elder at the northeast corner of the yard is bare. Two very large starling flocks seen. A few areas full color, others deep green. My ash at school gone. Full maples at Wilberforce, ashes two-thirds down, locusts full and thinning. Jumpseeds almost gone. Large mallows have yellow leaves. Black snakeroot flowers fading quickly. The first Christmas cactus flower opens in the greenhouse.

2007: At South Glen, the river is about two feet low. One tall bell flower seen, many asters, some fading zigzag goldenrod, rusting tall goldenrod by the place where the old barn stood. A pileated woodpecker heard, and crows. All the foliage dry and turning, the sycamores especially brown, falling, and many osage.

October 6th
The 279th Day of the Year

Greatly shining,
The Autumn moon floats in the thin sky....

Amy Lowell

Sunrise/set: 7:36/7:10 Day's Length: 11 hours 34 minutes
Average High/Low: 70/48 Average Temperature: 59
Record High: 87 - 1946 Record Low: 27 - 1980

Weather
Completely cloudy conditions are rare today: the 6th is one of the two sunniest days of the month (the other is the 8th), bringing only one day in ten without at least some blue sky. Today’s high temperature distribution: ten percent chance for 80s, fifteen percent for 70s, forty-five percent for 60s, thirty percent for 50s. Showers occur twice in a decade. Lows drop below 50 on 70 percent of the nights. And one more pivotal step to winter: for the first time in the autumn, the chances of a morning in the 20s rises to 15 percent.

Natural Calendar
Soybeans are often mature on half of the region's farms, and a fourth of that crop has been cut. Corn silage and potatoes have been harvested throughout the state by October 6th, and half the fall apples have been picked.

Daybook
1983: Wild lettuce is brown throughout. The ash by my window lost all its leaves today. The rest of the trees around it are green. The first yellow mulberry leaf seen today. Osage is turning behind the woodshed. Some forsythia is red.

1984: Middle fall arrives, trees suddenly deepening. A long flock of migrating blackbirds seen near Springfield.

1985: North along the railroad tracks: dozens of robins. Most wild cherry leaves and some dogwood gone. Three meadowlarks flying together. First yellow-rumped warblers seen. First junco of the year. Eastern burning bush: some pods opening, berries showing. White snakeroot mostly gone. Wild black cherry thinning, elms yellow brown and thinning, red poison ivy, black walnut trees totally bare, a few naked catalpas, goldenrod nine-tenths gone, geese loud and active at Ellis pond, some maples full color. Bouncing bets still flowering. Cottonwood, some yellow, some almost gone. Sassafras just starting to be orange. Staghorn leaves are gone, wild lettuce stark, black.

1986: It's middle fall for sure: beggarticks stuck to my pants today. New leaves sprouting on the pussy willow that had dropped most of its leaves last month. In the woods, zigzag goldenrod is about gone.

1987: Three-seeded mercury has lost its seeds, pods empty, a bright burnt sienna color against its green leaves.

1990: Cardinal sings at 1:30 p.m. Cicadas sporadic, but long silences in the afternoon. At 4:50 p.m. a large flock of blackbirds flies over the yard, continuing for about ten minutes, settles in the woodlot for an hour, then moves on. This is the fourth year in a row I've seen them near this day.

1992: To Springfield: Early full leafturn in some wood lots, locusts gold, maples orange, catalpas pale yellow, bright scarlet burning bush, touch of blood red on the oaks, pink dogwoods, violet brown ash. Starlings along the wires. Cornfields finally brown, soybeans rusting, ready to harvest. Some hickory deep solid red-orange, ashes holding late. They should blend with maples to create a spectacular peak.

1999: A cricket hunter visited the pond today, but insects are thinning out now. The red mulberry along the south hedge just starting to turn. Many ash trees and walnuts are coming down around town. Koi still feed heavily. One late red water lily holds on in the pond. Hackberry pale yellow on the north border. White boneset still in bloom on the way to Fairborn. Along the roadsides, four or five groundhogs killed, their activity or carelessness increasing as winter approaches? In the local paper: more and more sick raccoons captured by the police.

2000: In the wind and rain, the first tier of leaves is collapsing fully. As I eat lunch at school, a flock of crows moves south towards Lefels Lane, prelude to the November gathering. At Clifton, the canopy has thinned, all the flowers gone except the long-leaved purple asters. Zigzag goldenrod has gone to seed like the rest of the tall goldenrod.

2003: Sunny, high in the 50s. Half a dozen Painted Lady butterflies were in the zinnias when I went out to check the garden this afternoon. My ash at school is about three-fourths gone, the remaining leaves a mottled yellow. Along the freeways, the small wild dogwood and sumac are a dusky red beside the graying goldenrod.

2005: Another vole caught in the kitchen mousetrap last night, the third so far this week. The high is again expected to be in the 80s today, the last day in an exceptional spell of warm weather. The ash below my old window at work was all yellow this afternoon, more than two-thirds shed.

2007: Mateo’s Jerusalem artichokes are done blooming; ours have only a few blossoms left. The alley coneflowers are pretty much done, and even the chicory is getting ragged. Asters are still bright, white and violet. Along the front sidewalk, almost all the jumpseeds the jumpseeds have jumped. Eve reports that her red chestnut tree is blooming again in all this heat - all six days of October have been in the 80s, and those highs are expected to stay for another three days. I went to take a photograph of the flowers, and the tree was standing, no leaves and only a few chestnuts left, but several bright pink flowers were open, along with clusters of new foliage. This warm evening, katydids and crickets called from Tony’s field and the back woods.

October 7th
The 280th Day of the Year

We wondered if everything
Were as fragile as the brittle love vines
Holding to the nettle below Mill Dam
This seventh of October,
Fog coming south down river in the rain.

Sunrise/set: 7:37/7:08 Day's Length: 11 hours 31 minutes
Average High/Low: 69/47 Average Temperature: 58
Record High: 89 - 2007 Record Low: 26 - 1899

Weather
Overcast skies come 30 percent of October 7ths, but rain continues at yesterday's light 20 percent. Eighty-degree afternoons are observed 5 percent of the time, 70s twenty percent, 60s thirty percent, 50s forty percent, and 40s five percent. Only five percent of the morning lows are above 60 degrees; only 15 percent are even above 50. Frost strikes one day in five.

Natural Calendar
Chimney swifts, wood thrushes, barn swallows, and red-eyed vireos move out of the southern Ohio as early fall comes to an end. Flocks of blackbirds and robins migrate across the North Glen. Yellow-bellied sapsuckers and red-bellied nuthatches come through town. They stop to hunt for insects, sometimes spend a whole day. In the fields of South Glen, newborn grasshoppers are common, but many of the adults are dying.

Daybook
1983: Grinnell Swamp: Jumpseed and clearweed foliage is yellowing. Red-bodied dragonflies still seen. Hobblebush leaves becoming pale, wood nettle almost white now, avens a golden green. Only a couple of touch-me-not flowers left. New sweet rocket basal foliage is almost a foot long. Sedum and ginger are growing back. Aging clearweed is creamy white. The high canopy still intact. Bees still working, even in this cool late afternoon. Aphids still mating on the dead wingstem. Beggarticks still soft. No cobwebs found this afternoon: another step into middle fall.

1985: A few osage leaves turn and fall.

1987: Colors deepen quickly after two frosts, the entire spectrum of underbrush, shrubs, small and tall trees changing together. Robins very common, flickers and meadow larks, too. Flocks of birds pass overhead. Opossums and groundhogs are still being run over on the back roads. The maple in front of house is about half thinned. Lil's maple is still green, Mrs. Lawson's only turning lightly.

1991: First frost reaches the lawn but not the garden this morning. At Wilberforce, the parking lot locusts are down. At home, the earliest maples are bare before the scarlet ashes. Full leaf color continues.

1992: South Glen: Sycamore leaves crunching on the path. Streaks of full leaf color across the tree line: sycamores, yellow osage and paling box elder along the river. A few bees in the last of the goldenrod. Drooping, blanching wood nettle. Two autumn violets on the path. Two dragonflies cross the field in front of me. Ironweed tufted, foliage black like the wingstem. Still some asters left, although the lateriflora seem almost gone. Near Sycamore Hole, the long-leafed white asters seem the strongest; some heart-leafed also full. At Wilberforce, ashes reach peak yellow and red, some falling.

1995: Rapid change in the leaves now. A few of the crabapple trees have lost most of their foliage, a dense crop of orange berries on the earliest; the reds are coming too. The upper leaves of the witch hazels on Dayton Street are yellow. Most redbuds have become pale yellow. Yellow poplars show deep slashes of color, cottonwoods weakening. Some ashes hold at their peak, the larger still turning. New England asters passing their zenith in the south garden. As I weeded in the sun this afternoon, I saw the spring-autumn glow coming into the grass, the whole tint of the world shifting.

1997: Full late color on the locusts. Half of the catalpas are yellow, dogwood full red. Peak of the first tier of leaves. Full yellow redbuds. Early maples. Late ashes, full red burning bush.

1999: The maple in front of the house is half turned, maybe a fourth fallen.

2000: First light frost of the year on the roof this morning. Crows at 7:39 a.m.

2001: First cardinal (only cardinal) at 7:14 a.m. Goldenrod done at Susi’s, and her tomatoes have been cut back. First frost this morning, light damage to the elephant ears.

2003: One monarch butterfly seen at Washington Court House this morning at 11:10. Woolly-bear caterpillars common on the road. Many locusts and ashes are now full color, maples joining them in many wood lots. The landscape slowly turns an ocher-green. This afternoon, Asian lady beetles were swarming at Court House and also in Yellow Springs. The autumn crocus are still standing across the street.

2007: One cardinal song at 7:20 a.m., crows a little earlier. As we sat reading the Sunday paper, starlings whistled in the back trees. Sparrows and doves came in spurts to the bird feeder, and a red-bellied nuthatch flew back and forth for seeds. A female goldfinch came to the finch feeder, but the finches have been few and far between for the past month. No butterflies at all this morning, only a few cabbage butterflies in the afternoon. Along Dayton Street, the serviceberry trees hold half their yellow and brown leaves. Patches of bright gold have appeared on the white mulberry and the Osage in the back yard.

October 8th
The 281st Day of the Year

The woods is shining this morning.
Red, gold and green, the leaves
lie on the ground or fall,
hang full of light in the air still.

Wendell Berry

Sunrise/set: 7:38/7:07 Day's Length: 11 hours 29 minutes
Average High/Low: 69/47 Average Temperature: 58
Record High: 88 - 2007 Record Low: 23 - 1889

Weather
Chances for rain continue at a low 20 percent today. Chances for completely overcast condition are also just 20 percent. The high temperature distribution is as follows: 80s fifteen percent of the time, 70s thirty percent, 60s thirty percent, and 50s twenty-five percent. Frost comes one day in five.

The Week Ahead
While some days this week are often warm (the 8th of October bringing a 40 percent chance of highs above 70 degrees), others are typically cooler. October 11th, 12th, and 13th are the days most likely to see highs in the 40s or 50s. The coldest morning so far in the season usually comes on October 13th, when the chances of a low in the 20s are 20 percent for the first time since spring.
The first part of the week is usually dry (carrying only a 20 percent chance for precipitation on the 8th), but precipitation often increases thereafter, with the 10th bringing a 40 percent chance for rain, and the 12th a 50 percent chance. The 12th is also the first day that snow has a five to ten percent chance of falling.

Natural Calendar
Middle fall comes to the land along the 40th Parallel this week, and leafturn surges. The maples are transformed, and the ash, locust, hickory, red mulberry, cottonwood, crab apple, redbud, box elder, buckeye and walnut leaves come down over the next few days. Ginkgo fruits, which will be on the ground by late November, are turning pink. Burning bush is scarlet all over town.

Daybook
1982: Stopped at upper North Glen. Purple berries noticed on the brown Solomon's seal. No flowers found in bloom.

1985: Mill habitat: Hundreds of migrating blackbirds along the river, bathing, feeding in the fallen leaves and in the pebble beaches laid bare by the autumn drought. Maybe 30 or 40 buzzards circling above me, 28 counted on the sycamore roost, a couple with wings spread toward the sun. Shagbark hickory is yellow and thinning. River very low. Undergrowth benign, glowing like it does in April. Most asters declining. Zigzag mostly gone. Large cluster of red berries at the end of a fallen jack-in-the-pulpit. Only smartweed seems fresh. School of carp seen. Strong basal sweet rocket leaves, some a foot long. Some dogwood almost bare. In the yard, maples at high color and thinning; at the corner of Dayton and High: full gold. After just two light frosts, crickets so quiet, only a few sluggish ones calling in the yard.

1989: The speed and violence of the season increasing. Red mulberry, buckeye and some red-leafed crab apple leaves about gone. Ashes and locusts at Wilberforce still full color. All the buckeye fruits have fallen. Some black walnuts brought in today to dry; the nuts are coming down, but many are still left. Starlings in the back trees cackling. Now the July planted zinnias are full bloom in the greenhouse, and tomatoes blooming inside too, and yellow hibiscus and more geraniums. Aloe will blossom any day. Outside at night, no katydids, and crickets are slow in the cold.

1990: Leaves rapidly moving to peak, maples suddenly brilliant, the early side of the best color, but no real frost yet.

1991: The first tier of leaves is in the middle of falling now, the early maples, the box elders, ashes, red mulberries, locusts.

1992: To Springfield: At the freeway, a flock of blackbirds migrating southeast. A flock with no beginning and no end, flying out of the center of the city on one side of the horizon all across the sky into the countryside on the other side. I stopped at Sycamore Hole on the way home from work: leaf showers, clatter of sycamore leaves.

1994: All but a handful of New England asters have gone to seed in the south garden. Just the zinnias and violet mums left there, and a few spiderworts. Along the house and into the back yard, the impatiens are still as bright as in summer. In the garden, marigolds have overrun the cabbages and tomatoes.

1997: Ashes have peaked in the last couple of days, now starting to shed. Leaf fall accelerating as the early maples fill with color. The foliage around the yard is weakening a little each day, letting in more of the neighbors. No monarch butterflies seen for a while. The frog in the water garden still croaks a little. No water lilies - even after a week of afternoons in the 80s. Along the south hedge, the rose of Sharon is fading, no flowers since late September.

2001: Beeches rusting now. Dogwood full red and thinning. Squirrels eating osage, a robin at the honeysuckle berries. Bamboo in the south garden has a few yellowing leaves. Water willow turning in the pond. Along the highway to Columbus: ashes, hickory, and locusts peak, and maples begin to blend in with them. Rapid deepening now, the tree line almost everywhere at the door of middle fall. Goldenrod fields rusting. At my school window, the red maple color has trickled down haphazardly through the branches. Some of the campus maples have turned completely.

2003: Only a couple of Painted Ladies seen today. The tree lines are beginning to turn now, and about a third of the maples are yellow and orange in Wilmington. Peak leaf color reported across Michigan and Wisconsin. Katydids and crickets still sing in the mild evenings.

2005: Another vole caught this morning under the kitchen sink. Four in a week! This afternoon, the first fire in the wood stove, the afternoon cloudy, damp and windy, high only in the 50s. Along the freeway south, some woodlots have suddenly become full of color.

2007: Crows, grackles, starlings in the background as I walked the alley this morning. Robins whinnied and peeped their migration signals. In the yard, the New England asters are about three-fourths gone. I cut back the peonies and the Heliopsis yesterday. The Jerusalem artichokes have ended their brief flowering time. The crab apple tree in the east garden is almost bare. A long flock of blackbirds flew over Limestone Street as I drove downtown to buy lunch this noon, and this afternoon, Jean saw another long flock fly over the house. All afternoon I could hear them chattering in the trees around us.

October 9th
The 282nd Day of the Year

The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Sunrise/set: 7:39/7:05 Day's Length: 11 hours 26 minutes
Average High/Low: 68/46 Average Temperature: 57
Record High: 86 - 1939 Record Low: 30 - 1989

Weather
The 9th and the 10th are the last two days of the year on which there is an 85 percent chance for a high temperature above 60 degrees (45 percent chance for 60s, forty percent for 70s). A ten percent chance remains for cool 50s, five percent for an afternoon only in the 40s. The sky is partly to mostly sunny 65 percent of the days; showers occur 35 percent of the time. In spite of the mild temperatures, today is the earliest day for snow in the Dayton area. Frost comes 15 percent of the mornings, and nighttime lows drop below 50 half the time.

Natural Calendar
New hepatica leaves are dark and strong along the rocky paths of North Glen. The tips of many spruce trees are putting on pale fresh growth. Long flocks of blackbirds continue their flights across the fields. Robin migration intensifies along the Little Miami River.

Daybook
1982: White bindweed is still blooming in the brown soybean fields. New sow thistles are opening. Asiatic dayflowers are still in bloom, Queen Anne's lace still strong in places.

1983: Into Dayton: Full oranges and reds on the maples. Ashes yellow and gold. New England asters and bright goldenrod still common along the roadsides, a few white snakeroot noticed, even one field of bouncing bets.

1984: A flock of blackbirds seen migrating across the soybeans fields along Grinnell.

1986: White small-flowered asters are dying back. Late thyme-leafed speedwell goes to seed. But the trees, which should be reaching peak color, are green as in early September. Three carp, one small, one medium, one large, caught on three casts at Sycamore Hole. Fishing statistics: 58 degrees, breezy, water medium high, sky overcast, between 4:45 and 5:30 p.m., moon in Sagittarius, one day before the first quarter, barometer slowly rising.

1987: More maples have turned, full color advancing bit by piece.

1989: Frosts intensifying, record lows to the north in Toledo, record 30 degrees here. Red mulberry shedding, black walnuts coming down more heavily. It's suddenly the middle of middle fall, the season surging.

1990: Through the greenhouse glass before sunrise, Orion was centered in the southern sky above the winter tomatoes; the moon was setting into the osage orange.

1992: Early peak of leaves may be beginning. The ash have come to their best colors during early maple turn, will decline now, and the maples will come to the forefront for the center of middle fall.

1993: To Detroit and back: Full color of the leaves in northern Ohio and southern Michigan. One gauge of the progress of autumn north was the burning bush: solid red in Detroit, only half turned in Yellow Springs. Long flocks of grackles passed over the car near Lake Erie.

1994: Peak leaf color from Yellow Springs to Columbus, the late ashes blending with the best of the maples.

1998: The end of the New England asters, all sedum. Dead nettle still full bloom, and the bright yellow tansy.

1999: Rain and mild for the street fair. I sat at my table, my hand-made books for sale, watching the people and the rain. Sometimes, the wind picked up and the rain blew in a little on the books, but mostly the day was simply damp and enclosing, comforting and benign. Katydids heard tonight before bed.

2000: Three water lilies left in the pond, pads yellowing.

2001: Strong katydids, strong whistling crickets, strong chanting crickets tonight.

2003: Asian lady beetles continue to swarm at Washington Court House and in Yellow Springs. No Painted Ladies in the zinnias today. One Monarch sighted flying through the parking lot at the mall. Peak color now across the area for ashes. Oaks and sweet gums have started. Another week will being full middle fall colors.

2004: No Asian ladybeetle invasion yet. Katydids and crickets were loud in the mild night.

2005: Looking back on last year’s entry about the ladybeetles, the invasion never came. This year, I found one in the bathroom yesterday morning, but none outside. In the north garden today, one yellow rose is blooming, and the late patch of New England asters is still in full bloom. Around the yard, a few violet mallows are flowering and one very late rudbeckia, a few bindweed, one rose of Sharon. Around town, late hostas will purple flowers are still strong.

2006: No monarchs or butterflies today even though the high reached into the upper 70s. The small ash tree just over the line in Moya’s yard is full deep red. The yellow ash next to the bare black walnut tree at Mills Lawn is almost all down. No Asian lady beetles at all this year.

2007: A few starlings sitting high in Don’s bare black walnut tree this morning. Sparrows boisterous in the pear trees downtown late this afternoon.

October 10th
The 283rd Day of the Year

In the tenth month, the leaves begin to fall…
In the tenth month, the crickets get under our beds.
In the tenth month, we block the northern windows...

Ancient Chinese Verse

Sunrise/set: 7:40/7:04 Day's Length: 11 hours 24 minutes
Average High/Low: 68/46 Average Temperature: 57
Record High: 86 - 1904 Record Low: 29 - 1888

Weather
Ten percent chance for a high in the 80s today, 30 percent for 70s, forty-five percent for 60s, fifteen percent for 50s. The frequency of showers is one day in three, and totally overcast conditions occur 25 percent of the time. Seventy percent of the mornings fall below 50 degrees, and frost strikes 15 percent of the time.

Natural Calendar
In the fields, asters and goldenrods show obvious declines this week. In garden ponds, water lilies stop blooming. By the roadsides, only the pink smartweed seems impervious to the shortening days. Brown beggarticks stick to your stockings, and the winged seeds of Japanese knotweed fall.

Daybook
1982: Crickets still sing at night. Most tall goldenrod has rusted, only scattered stalks staying bright. Geese fly oveb the hoese at 6:45 p.m. Beggartick seeds are dry today, ready to stick. New sweet clover, sorrel, chicory blooming.

1983: Geese fly over the house 6:45 p.m.

1984: Ginkgoes yellowing quickly this fall.

1985: No more blackbirds along the river by the mill, their migration over so quickly. Peak maple leaf color begins. Staghorn sumacs bright red. Ashes falling all at once.

1986: A flock of robins was passing through the Glen by the swinging bridge. I stood and listened to their calls as they moved south, tacking from one tree to another. Foliage on the understory trees still early September green, but most all the wildflowers are done blooming. New leaves growing on the pussy willow, and on the lower branches of the mock orange.

1987: Japanese knotweed's winged seeds have all fallen, foliage brown from the frost.

1992: Crickets still strong at night, but no katydids heard for at least a week, even though the nights have been mild. Peak color now, hickories and ashes blending with maples and oaks. Cardinal sang at 7:45 a.m. Beggarticks stuck to my pants today. One goldenrod field at the south edge of town is bright as in September, must have been bush-hogged in July.

1993: South Glen: A few jumpseeds hang on, and many asters are still full bloom. Some zigzag goldenrod is gone now. Wingstem and ironweed plants are black, their leaves shriveled and brittle. Jean cut the last cosmos in the yard this afternoon, the first killing frost due tonight. Leaf color is nearing its peak.

1998: Crows at 7:10 a.m., cardinals at 7:20 and 7:50.

1999: New England asters in decline. Yard silent in the soft rainy Sunday.

2000: To Wilmington: Palomino silver maples with deeper gilding now. Ashes gone, a pause in the turning, a deepening of the other tree color, as though the remaining foliage had been sobered by the ash-fall.

2001: Mottled wild cherry leaves. Rapid reddening of dogwoods and sweet gum trees. On the way to Columbus: early full color in a majority of the woodlots. Most cottonwoods now bare. The grape vine at my window shows a slight yellowing. White clover is in full bloom in the field by my classroom at Washington Courthouse.

2002: This morning, the trees were almost as green as in mid September, only a vague ochre moving in ever so lightly. By late afternoon, I sensed that the canopy was suddenly relenting, giving in to the chemical dictates of the season. I could not tell, however, exactly which trees had caused me to change my assessment.

2003: In South Glen this morning: The woods and fields are tattered, and the canopy has thinned considerably with box elders, locusts, black walnuts, buckeyes, and some ashes down. A few white asters, Short’s aster, and an untoothed, heart-leafed purple aster still in bloom, along with some late zigzag goldenrod. The river is low after a month with little rain. Along Corey Street and on the road down along the covered bridge, maples are reaching full color. At home, Mrs. Lawson’s maple is full, the Danielson’s almost full.

2004: Mrs. Lawson’s maple is a full, bright orange. White boneset seeds have become fluffy; beggarticks stuck to Bella this morning when she ran through the bushes. All across the county, ashes are holding red and gold and maples are coming in.

2006: Early full color throughout the countryside as maples join the ashes. One ginkgo is ochre at Wilberforce, many of the ashes already fallen there. One monarch seen heading south in Wilmington. The small pale violet cyclamen by the shed is in full bloom.

2007: Goldenrod is tufting in the alley now (rusting throughout the countryside). Sparrows loud, more starlings chirping above the alley. Leafturn has suddenly stopped as the cottonwoods are three-fourths down. Lil’s maple and the Danielson’s are green.

October 11th
The 284th Day of the Year

This is when the piercing power and sultry heat of the sun abate, and gods send autumn rains, and flesh of men and women feels easier.

Hesiod

Sunrise/set: 7:41/7:02 Day's Length: 11 hours 21 minutes
Average High/Low: 67/45 Average Temperature: 56
Record High: 87 - 1928 Record Low: 26 - 1906

Weather
The milder temperatures of the 9th and 10th give way on the 11th: only 15 percent of today’s afternoons reach 70. Fifty-five percent are in the 60s, fifteen percent are in the 50s; and, for the first time since April 20th, there is a 15 percent chance for highs just in the 40s. Frost occurs one morning in 15. Showers fall, and clouds cover the sky one day in three. Lows drop below 50 two nights in three.

Natural Calendar
The Pleiades and the Hyades of Taurus lie on the eastern horizon after dark, announcing middle autumn. But summer's Milky Way is still directly overhead, and June's corona borealis still has not set by ten o'clock. Cygnus, the swan is still high above Yellow Springs, along with August's Aquila and Lyra. The pointers of the Big Dipper point north-south deep in the northern sky.

Daybook
1984: Grinnell Swamp: White snakeroot gone, goldenrod gone, violet asters to seed, touch-me-nots shriveling. Ash, cottonwood, box elders fallen, some oaks brown, maples and redbuds gold and delicate, sycamore coming on heavily, elms mottled, canopy maybe a third down. Hepatica dark green, swamp mint growing back, water cress too – some even blooming. No cobwebs. Cabbage butterflies still mating. Leafcup still blooming.

1987: First days of full leaf color.

1988: Still a little time before the foliage peak. Asters still full of color, but most all the goldenrod has turned to rust, their prime a week ago. The fields are brown, all the coneflowers have faded, and most all the ironweed, the last seven days bringing the flowers to an end.

1990: Extremely rapid deterioration now. Some crab apples at Wilberforce, the deep red-leafed ones, are gone. A few ginkgo leaves have dropped. The last two weeks have opened the undergrowth, and the street is visible now on the northwest side of the yard. Box elders, honeysuckles, and pokeweed are thinning. But no frost yet, except one night on the roof.

1992: Early full color.

1993: Carol at the printers talked about how when she left the county a week ago the trees were green, and when she came back yesterday, everything had changed. The woods, she said, were in full color all along the way from Maryland.

1998: Crows at 7:16 a.m. Cardinals at 7:35 a.m. Then grackles. Wren chatters at 9:15 a.m.

2000: Redbuds half gone, staghorn speckled with autumn red, many cottonwoods down, hickory deep gold, linden lightly fringed with gold, beech yellowing, most New England asters finished.

2001: Monarch butterfly sighted as it flew southwest across a soybean field today, orange on the rust-brown plants. Along the bike path, tall bellflowers, red smartweed, the last white snakeroot, a couple of soapworts and tall coneflowers. Goldenrod ending its cycle. Tonight, one bat, katydids and crickets in the rain.

2002: Soft, cloudy morning at South Glen: Purple asters with the arrowhead leaves are still blooming. Goldenrod seeding. Hawthorn, black walnut, box elder, sycamore, cottonwood all at similar levels of decay, a gold-green-brown breakdown. Wingstem black and withered. Grasses are dry, falling over. Mottled maroon blackberry leaves. Nine puffball mushrooms found at the turn past Middle Prairie – after a temperature last night in the mid 50s and a good rain. White-throated sparrows are back to winter over here like juncos, Mike said. Tonight, the evening is mild, katydids and crickets singing.

2003: Only a couple of painted ladies in the zinnias today, even though the sky was clear and the sun was warm. Asian lady beetles are still flying here and there. Mosquitoes less pesky today as I worked on the woodpile. When I watered the Christmas cacti, I noticed one of the plants budding.

October 12th
The 285th Day of the Year

Seasons pursuing each other,
the plougher ploughs, the mower mows,
and the winter grain falls in the ground.

Walt Whitman

Sunrise/set: 7:42/7:01 Day's Length: 11 hours 19 minutes
Average High/Low: 67/45 Average Temperature: 56
Record High: 85 - 1928 Record Low: 26 - 1908

Weather
Today and the 21st are the two October days most likely to
bring clouds – completely overcast conditions occurring half the time. Rain is also likely – showers or all-day drizzle occurring six days in ten. And the first flurries of the Ohio season sometimes fall on this date. Highs warm to the 80s five percent of the days, to the 70s fifteen percent, to the 60s thirty percent, 50s forty percent, and 40s ten percent.

Natural Calendar
Most of the grapes and apples have been picked by now. Half of the winter wheat is normally in the ground, and a fourth of it has sprouted. Soybeans are mature in most of the fields. Farmers often apply nitrogen, phosphate, and potash now in order to decrease their springtime workload.

Daybook
1983: More and more ash leaves fall along Grinnell. Rain and wind bring on the appearance of autumn.

1984: Radical leafturn on one ginkgo tree.

1985: Canopy thins rapidly. Maples and oaks bright red, orange, and yellow.

1989: To West Virginia: Now it seems to be early peak leaf color just before the real decadence of full middle fall. Many catalpas are down, beans dangling. Occasional ash, box elder, tree of heaven, some poplars and sycamores almost bare. Shagbark hickory golden. Black walnuts have dropped their leaves, fruit still hanging. Most all the goldenrod is done blooming, brown but not gray yet. Lush violet smartweed noticed at a rest stop in southeast Ohio, some red clover. All corn and soybeans unharvested. Clumps of mums in the towns. In the foothills: New England asters against a bright green pasture. Crooked stem aster found at rest stop near Athens, aster prenanthoides. Small white asters very common. Patches of Queen Anne's lace. Sumacs red 30 miles from Athens. Some snakeroot, some jewelweed seen along the road, and banks of low, red, sumac, whole waysides full color, then gaps where the leaves had fallen. Common quickweed found blooming in the mountain woods seemed so exotic, I wasn’t able to identify it until I got home and checked my books.

1998: Heavy walnut fall now. Squirrels hard at work.

1999: Yesterday I finally paid attention to the scrub maple that was so gold and orange outside my west window. It had been hidden all summer by a box elder, by some honeysuckle bushes and euonymus vines, shaded by tall locusts and osage. I had occasionally glanced at it over the past week, noted its turning, but now I saw it push boldly out of hiding and reveal its brilliance.
I had dismissed its beauty before. And then yesterday, just before its foliage collapsed in the rain, the maple showed itself completely to me, like sometimes happens with a person, seen for an instant, desired, then vanishing, leaving behind an aching and confusion.

2003: Blackbirds clucking in the back trees. Lil’s maple and the Danielson’s maple are both near full color today. Mrs. Lawson’s maple is full and shedding. Janet Hackett’s redbud in the north garden is all yellow. Ash, maple, and locust leaves are falling heavily in the breeze this morning, lie in clumps and rows in the streets. It is the early peak of middle autumn.

2005: Katydids and crickets are singing in the warm dry night.

2006: Snow flurries today!

2007: An orange and black woolly bear caterpillar crawled across the patio at noon. The largest painted lady butterfly I’ve ever seen came to the zinnias this afternoon.

October 13th
The 286th Day of the Year

The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose.

William Shakespeare

Sunrise/set: 7:43/6:59 Day's Length: 11 hours 16 minutes
Average High/Low: 67/45 Average Temperature: 56
Record High: 86 - 1975 Record Low: 27 - 1988

Weather
Frost occurs this morning 40 percent of all the years in my records, the highest percentage so far this fall. Twenty-five percent of those freezing temperatures are in the 20s, so this is the first really dangerous day of the year for tender garden vegetables. Daytime highs rise into the 80s fifteen percent of the years, but that is the last time for such a percentage until April 20th. Chances for 70s are 15 percent, for 60s fifteen percent, for 50s forty percent, for 40s five percent. Rain: one day in three; skies are clear to partly cloudy 80 percent of the time.

Natural Calendar
In the cooler nights, crickets and katydids are weakening, but woolly bears are suddenly everywhere on the backroads when the sun breaks through. Monarch butterflies have left for Mexico. Only a few swallowtails and fritillaries visit the garden, and just a few fireflies glow in the grass.

Daybook
1982: First black walnuts and buckeyes fall, then box elders, then ashes and the first maples.

1983: A long flock of geese flew over at 7:30 p.m. Red buds prominent on the pussy willows. Chicory, red clover, a few Queen Anne's lace, small-flowered asters, a few late goldenrod blooming. Tomatoes still ripening. Celandine still open.

1984: Locusts at Wilberforce suddenly lose their leaves. New buds are prominent on the pussy willows. The maple in front of the house is three-fourths gone, Mrs. Lawson’s almost all gone.

l985: Jacoby: Winter foliage: fresh garlic mustard, dame's rocket, sedum, catchweed, chickweed, mint, ragwort, dock, sweet Cicely, wild ginger, and avens. Purple deadnettle that sprouted a month ago is two inches tall now. River low and quiet, crickets still loud. Bare trees stand out stark against the mist, oaks thinning like the sycamores, reflection of leaf gold mixing with green water cress in the sloughs, white berries prominent in the red dogwood. The sun, dim and low through the last leaves and the blue-gray clouds, sets the woods glowing. Doorweed found blooming in the lawn at home.

1988: South Glen, 10:00 a.m. After two mornings of heavy frost, trees are burned, lamb's quarters red, ash and tree of heaven leaf clusters falling with the melting ice. Osage leaves black and crisp clattering down.

1989: Katydids still loud at night. Milkweed pods have burst all the way from here to Morgantown, West Virginia. Some scattered sundrops blooming. The last white snakeroot has faded at Cooper's Rock, WV, just like here in Yellow Springs.

1990: Some forsythia blooming on Elm street.

1992: Slow leafturn continues. Buckeyes and black walnuts are bare, but most other trees holding well. Lil's maple is coloring now, earlier than most years; ours has lost a third of its leaves. Peak of mum bloom. At South Glen, shiners steal my bait. As I sit on the riverbank, a small flock of robins comes through the woods behind me with bursts of song, loud explosions of peeps.

1995: At Grinnell Pond, the white snakeroot is seeding. Heart-leafed asters are still strong, but zigzag goldenrod petals are sagging. At the pond, the large-flowered beggarticks have been gone since the first days of the month. In the triangle park, I noticed the tips of the spruce have fresh growth. At Wilberforce, most of the young locusts and ashes have come down, but the golden ash at the park just reached its peak yesterday, starting to shed today. Lindens there have been earlier than the box elders, leaves darkening to a muddy brown, curling up, then falling.

1998: Downtown: crows pass through at 7:11 a.m. Sparrows start calling at 7:15 a.m.

1999: Geese fly over in the middle of the afternoon. Katydids heard last night, still strong with the crickets. Peak leaf color throughout the area now, many of the first and second foliage tiers holding as the maples turn.

2000: Now the maples are really coming on. Very late New England aster seen. Three red water lilies are still open in the pond.

2001: Long flock of blackbirds flew over the house this morning at 9:45. They cackled and swarmed in the back trees then moved on east, their passage taking almost fifteen minutes. This afternoon, I found the witch hazel in bloom.

2002: First Christmas cacti are budding in the greenhouse. A flicker or pileated woodpecker has been calling in the back woodlot for a week now.

2003: Two painted ladies and maybe half a dozen cabbage butterflies in the garden today.

2004: Mrs. Lawson’s maple is full yellow-gold, Lil’s maple just barely starting.

2005: Jean said she heard Albert, the green frog, croak once today. In the Northeast, heavy rains and flooding. Across the countryside, more maples are coming. Some corn and soybean fields are still uncut. New England asters hold here and there. Locusts and ashes are peaking in Wilberforce, full but falling. The cusp of time between early and middle fall still holds.

October 14th
The 287th Day of the Year

Lil’s maple is pale gold now,
And the Danielsons’ bright orange
Across the street.

Every fall, I watch the passage
Of those trees through October
Even though Lil died
And the Danielsons moved
To a nursing home years ago.

Each tree is a guide
That shows a different time in place.
Lil’s maple is later than all the others on High Street,
Often waiting to turn until the first day
Of November. Lil’s maple is the far anchor
Of middle autumn. When Lil’s comes down,
I know the ginkgoes have fallen
Near my old office window in Wilberforce,
And the white mulberry behind our house
Will be bare within a week.

The Danielsons’ tree never varies,
always marks the leafturn center
In Yellow Springs. I could stay here at my window
And attend to nothing else, knowing the whole world
Was spinning by design,
And that I could never lose my way again.

October 14, 2003

Sunrise/set: 7:44/6:58 Day's Length: 11 hours 14 minutes
Average High/Low: 66/44 Average Temperature: 55
Record High: 91 - 1899 Record Low: 27 - 1979

Weather
Today is sunny to partly cloudy eight days in ten. Mild conditions usually prevail, with highs above 70 fifteen percent of the afternoons, 60s occurring about half the time, 50s a fourth of the time, and 40s just once in 15 years. Even though nights are ordinarily in the 30s and 40s, frost comes only one morning in ten on this date. Showers occur one day in three.

Natural Calendar
Quickweed still provides a deep green border to the paths, and a few tall goldenrod and zigzag goldenrod still hold in the woods. Occasional asters are still blooming, along with chicory and Queen Anne's lace. Most years, impatiens, petunias, and geraniums still bloom with the mums and pansies.

Daybook
1983: South Glen: Buzzards are still flying, crickets loud. Chicory is still blooming, along with the nettles that were cut over in the fields. Burdock still open, red clover, asters, white smartweed still in bloom, but some of the pale violet asters are gone. Zigzag goldenrod still open but late; white snakeroot bloom is over, bell flower leaves yellow and tattered, touch-me-not leaves mostly fallen: today seems the beginning of the last decline. The tall canopy is weakening, the undergrowth losing its leaves too. Ashes are gone, oaks, maples, box elders, osage, elms are thinning out. Black walnut trees are bare. Dogwoods reddening. Ginger and sedum and sweet Cicely growing back now, and I found two autumn violets flowering. Sweet, dank, bitter smell of fallen leaves. I came across a small flock of robins on my walk.

1984: Covered Bridge: Buzzards flying, crickets loud. Oaks, maples, osage, elms thinning, walnuts gone. Newborn grasshoppers in the fields. Tattered pokeweed bent with fat purple berries. Touch-me-nots have lost almost all their leaves. Catchweed growing back and blooming. Rose hips are orange. Some sumacs gone. One violet blooming. Wood nettle, pale and yellow, still dominant in the underbrush. Small flock of robins passes through.

1985: Spring's purple deadnettle is lush, four inches tall in the garden. Major leaf drop about a week early this year, locusts half yellow, half gone. Ginkgoes a rusty faded green. Half the maples are falling. As I went into South Glen this afternoon, I met a man who told me that deer rutting season would be starting soon.

1988: Catalpas, burned from two nights in the 20s, fall across the road in the wind, half gone in a day. Grape leaves are black, tree of heaven black, leaf stalks melting from the branches. Osage leaves at South Glen burned and crisp, coming down through the stronger leaves that survived the frost. Crickets still singing. Around six o'clock this evening, sparrows burst into some dispute in the cherry tree.

1989: Locust leaves flutter down in clumps this afternoon. Peach almost gone, tree of heaven, red mulberry. Sparrows vociferous, cardinals strong off and on, grackles cackling and chattering in the back trees, robins moving through the thinning shrub line. Full leaf color today in Yellow Springs and east on my drive into West Virginia. Loud and clear days and nights.

1990: Red mulberries weakened, maybe half gone, and gnarled even without a frost. Raspberry leaves yellowing. Lil's maple has started on the north side, a patch of color maybe six feet wide. Box elders have come down quickly this past week.

1991: Ginkgo fruits turning rose color, will drop all at once in six weeks.

1992: No ginkgo fruits at all this year.

1995: Yesterday temperatures in the 80s, the leaves dry, falling in showers through the afternoon. I worked tarring the tin roof as the tree of heaven came down into the sticky coating. Clouds covered the sky by evening, then light rain. This morning, Yellow Springs is in the dip of the low pressure system, the cold front still a hundred miles away. The moon, just past full, is shining through the eye of the front. I have the back door open. Outside in the dark, leaves keep clattering down, and the wind is gusty.

1998: Crows fly over 7:13 a.m. Cardinal sings 8:42 a.m. The greenhouse is lush now with winter tomato and pepper plants,
only a few whiteflies, and those easily controlled. Full color begins now in town all at once.

2000: Crows before dawn, 7:23. Tonight, katydids and crickets still singing.

2001: Yellowing leaves on the ironweed.

2002: First light frost.

2003: The peak of the ashes has just passed, and even many of the maples are coming down. The Osage leaves are bright yellow, compensating a little for the growing bareness of the tree line.

2004: Great flocks of blackbirds passed over me as I drove south. At one point in the city, the birds filled a grove of bare cottonwoods, their black bodies appearing to replace the fallen leaves.

2005: At South Glen this morning: a few tall bellflowers had purple blossoms still, but the zigzag and the tall goldenrods were finished. A few small white asters and Short’s and heart-leaved asters remain in bloom. The foliage of the undergrowth, the wood nettle, the wingstem and the ironweed is thinning quickly, and the early trees of the canopy have shed their leaves. The river is very low. One hawk heard in an hour’s time, one crow.

2007: Another long flock of blackbirds flew over the yard about 2:00 this afternoon. The stagnation in leafturn continues: neither Lil’s maple nor the Danielsons’ has started to show any sign of fall.
One autumn violet seen in bloom at the side of Peggy’s house.

October 15th
The 288th Day of the Year

One's own landscape comes, in time, to be a sort of outlying part of himself; he has sowed himself broadcast upon it, and it reflects his own moods and feelings.... How has the farmer planted himself in the fields; builded himself into his stone walls, and evoked the sympathy of the hills by his struggle!

John Burroughs,

Sunrise/set: 7:45/6:56 Day's Length:11 hours 11 minutes
Average High/Low: 66/44 Average Temperature: 55
Record High: 91 - 1899 Record Low: 28 - 1939

Weather
The 15th is usually pleasant, with clear to partly cloudy conditions prevailing 90 percent of the days. Rain passes through just one day in four. Highs in the 80s occur five percent of the time, 70s thirty percent, 60s forty percent, 50s twenty-five percent. Morning lows reach the 30s or 40s half the years, and frost strikes one to two dawns out of ten.

The Week Ahead
While most afternoons are in the 50s and 60s, the weather does warm up sometimes: the 15th and 16th each have a 40 percent chance for highs in the 70s or 80s, and the other days at least have a 30 percent chance of such temperatures.
Lows in the 20s or 30s are most likely to occur on the mornings of the 19th, 20th, with the latter date carrying the highest chances for a freeze so far this season: a full 30 percent chance for a light frost, and an additional 20 percent chance for a hard freeze.
Most days this week have a 30 percent chance for precipitation, with the 16th and 17th being the wettest (with a 40 percent chance). The times most likely to produce snow are the 18th through the 20th (but only five to ten percent of all the years).

Natural Calendar
The third week of October marks the center of middle fall in Yellow Springs. The chemical changes in the foliage that became noticeable six weeks ago have accelerated since the end of September, and now the fragile landscape is turning all at once. Shagbark hickories, maples, sweet gums, oaks, sassafras, and sycamores are at their best as ashes all come down.

Daybook
1983: Arrowhead brown at Ellis Pond, asters sporadic through the village. Leaf color has peaked in the countryside but not in town. Small flock of red-winged blackbirds at the pond, the only fall migrating flock of them I've seen. Sunflower field north of town: heads dark, bent toward the ground. A field of winter wheat, just sprouted, fresh spring green.

1984: Peak leaf color ended today, the maples shedding quickly.

1985: All the leaves fell from Mrs. Lawson's maple today. In our yard, more than three fourths of the maples are down.

1986: The landscape just barely turning.

1989: When I left town on the 12th for West Virginia, leaf color was just gathering momentum throughout southern Ohio. Then on the 13th it seemed like everything changed overnight. Returning to Ohio on the 14th, no question - it was the center of leafturn. Today, it's late peak. Locusts, box elders, most ash are gone - the end of the first phase of leafdrop which occurs during the height of the oaks and maples. In a day or two, middle fall will be over.

1990: A mild, gentle peak of leaves in Yellow Springs. My maple and many others are full. The woods down Grinnell Road is thinner now. At dawn, the road is lighter, the sky showing through. All the goldenrod has rusted, all the yard's asters have been gone for a week or more. Patches of Queen Anne's lace still hold in bloom along Wilberforce-Clifton Road. No frost yet. Impatiens continue to flower with the mums. Woolly bear caterpillars are suddenly everywhere.

1992: Ashe leaves coming down in the center of the first major shedding and the beginning of peak maple color.

1997: Finally all the Japanese beetles are gone.

1998: The Japanese beetles have been gone for weeks this dry autumn. Mosquitoes have been few. In the greenhouse, even the whiteflies are less threatening. I find only a couple of dozen a day on more than two dozen tomatoes. Those tomatoes are lush now, especially the ones that haven’t set their fruit. Their foliage is soft and deep green, their stalks fat and succulent. The tomatoes that matured early and have large green fruit are wizened, their leaves tough, their new blossoms not setting; they look old and worn out.

2000: Rapid onset of middle fall. Full song of the katydids tonight.

2001: Flock of blackbirds passed over at 8:20 this morning. At school: my red maples have turned completely; my grapevine is unchanged; the white oaks still green. Most redbuds are down. Across the countryside, the weekend’s rain has taken the ashes and dulled the early tier peak. Now the second phase: full middle fall. In Madison, Wisconsin, about 300 miles north of Yellow Springs, Tat said they were still at peak leaf color, probably the last stage of mapleturn.

2002: A cool evening in the 40s. Only a few crickets. Days and nights so quiet.

2003: The Danielson’s tree is shedding from the top, foliage about a third to a half down. Lil’s tree now full gold. No butterflies seen today. Maple leaves all over the lawn and sidewalks.

2004: One monarch seen on the way to Springfield. Peak maple color is occurring now as the ashes pass their best. The “secret maple” is full bright yellow, as is the new maple at the northeast corner of the yard. The Danielsons’ maple is patchy gold and green.