With a grey day with only a predicted high of 39 to start November off, I’m already dreaming of warmer fall days and so are the frogs. Apparently the water is already a might chilly as the frog yesterday hopped in for a swim but made a quick U turn and then flattened down in the deer track to catch the sun yesterday and to be out of the wind. I just had to pull my hood up while feeding the fish since I didn’t fit in a down in a hoof print track in the mud.
Warm Fall Day Down at the Pond
The word Halloween was first used in the 16th century and represents a Scottish variant of the fuller All Hallows’ Even (‘evening’), that is, the night before All Hallows’ Day or All Saints Day. And while scholars might disagree on the origin of Halloween, whether origin dates back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain or has only Christian roots, Halloween and its traditions has changed over the years.
When I was a kid growing up in the country, we didn’t go out Trick-or-treating since there were no city blocks to walk up and down to collect candy. But my mother said we could have any candy left over we had for visitors after the trick-or-treating was done. So the goal was to scare as many kids away so there would be more candy for me and my siblings.
Well hiding up in the trees howling and making creepy sounds over the walkies-talkies hidden in metal cans worked in scaring the kids. But it worked too good as less came the next years so mom didn’t buy as much candy so we didn’t gain much candy overall.
So if you see a big round hay bale painted as a large pumpkin, beware that there might be a candy hungry kid hiding behind it, waiting to scare you!
Halloween Round Hay Bale Pumpkin
The colder weather sure can be felt and it is making my cat unhappy, not because it is too cold for him, but because the chipmunks are not out playing for him to try to be the big hunter.
A chipmunk can gather up to 165 acorns in a day and I saw one that had three acorns stuffed in its cheeks. The chipmunk’s den contains at least two chambers, one with a cozy leaf-lined nest and the other used as a storage pantry for the chipmunk’s favorite foods, including nuts and seeds (the seeds from my bird feeder).
Chipmunks hibernate, but instead of storing fat, they periodically dip into their cache of nuts and seeds throughout the winter.
Chipmunk Hanging Out
When fall comes, the eye is drawn to the bright, colorful leaves so it is easy to overlook the fall flowers, especially if tiny ones. I was surprised to see the Forget-Me-Nots still blooming in October when I had photographed them in June, but there they were, along the stream bed displaying their blue, below a colorful hillside of autumn foliage.
The Forget-Me-Not, a tiny bright sky blue flower with a white ring and yellow center, was chosen as Alaska State Flower in 1949.
Forget-Me-Nots in the Fall
I started the red/yellow week on Monday so I could have ended the week with Saturday’s picture so both the yellow and red had equal showing, but like in baseball, the National League Championship Series went seven games to determine a winner. But since I like everyone to win, today’s picture will be both a red and yellow picture.
But like the windmills, the old wooden corn cribs are losing out to metal corn cribs or the more common metal corn bins. Corn cribs were first used by Native Americans. The early corn cribs had many designs, not all made from wood, but generally had some type of slats in the wall to allow air to circulate, drying the corn to prevent mold and decay. A roof to keep the corn out of the weather and elevated to prevent rodent infestation were common of the designs. They may have been a single long building, or one with two cribs and a center driveway. But whatever the style, they are disappearing like the wooden barns and windmills.
Corn Crib Wooden Slats
For today’s red picture, I also needed some blue in addition to the red as it has been a cloudy week but the sun is promised for today.
Red Barns
Continuing with the week’s red / yellow theme, the yellow ears of corn are making their way up an elevator to the top of a corn bin. Eventually the ears will find their way to the bottom door when it is ground for feed unless the squirrels or birds eat them first.
Traveling Corn
Since it seems that I started a yellow / red theme this week, it’s time for another red picture and this barn fits the bill for red and there even is a hint of yellow in the corn field.
I have been hearing the song God Bless America several times this past week, even the Fed Ex driver had it on when he delivered a package, and while there is not a line that says farm land, the prairie line will have to include this scene since it’s not a mountain or the ocean white with foam.
Red Standing Proud
It is getting harder to find bright colors as the fall continues its march to winter but occasionally some yellow dandelions or other yellow flowers might be spotted like these Butter-and-eggs also known as Common Toadflax or Yellow Toadflax. While native to Europe and other parts of the world, the Butter-and-eggs were not native to North America but have been introduced and now very common along roads ditches and disturbed lands and is considered as a weed, although sometimes cultivated for cut flowers and used in folk medicine for a variety of ailments.
Because this plant grows as a weed, it has acquired a large number of local names, including brideweed, bridewort, butter and eggs, butter haycocks, bread and butter, bunny haycocks, bunny mouths, calf’s snout, Continental weed, dead men’s bones, devil’s flax, devil’s flower, doggies, dragon bushes, eggs and bacon, false flax, flaxweed, fluellen, gallweed, gallwort, impudent lawyer, Jacob’s ladder, lion’s mouth, monkey flower, North American ramsted, rabbit flower, rancid, ransted, wild flax, wild snapdragon, wild tobacco, and yellow rod.
Like snapdragons (Antirrhinum), they are often grown in children’s gardens for the “snapping” flowers which resembles the face of a dragon that opens and closes its mouth when laterally squeezed thus the flower ‘snaps’ or ‘talks’.
Butter and Eggs
The reds, orange and yellows of the maple trees are gone but the oaks are still providing some fall color, even if many of the oaks have a more brownish color. But some oaks have a bright red color too and often mixed in with green right next to the reds. Although many of those pretty oaks leaves took flight over night and are now covering my lawn.
Red-colored Oak Leaves
