Yesterday was probably the last chance for maple leaves to have a golden glow in the filtered sunlight since the wind, snow and rain this week will likely strip most of the leaves off the maples and only a few hardly survivors left to wave at you on mostly bare tree. Maybe the bluebirds will head south now with the lost of leaves as they were still singing yesterday in the sunshine.
Catching the Last Golden Glow
It may be Friday, but the work week won’t end for the farmers trying to get the crops in before winter, especially with the forecast of snow flakes in the air. The soybeans are being harvested in this field but there is still corn in the next field to get harvested.
Autumn Harvest
The maples leaves are disappearing with the wind, robbing the trees of their glorious autumn displays and the ‘leaf peepers’ will have to wait another year to see colorful maple leaves again.
Vanishing Autumn
The ‘leaf peepers’ are normally out when the maples are red, orange and yellow and the later turning oaks are often ignored, especially since many oaks just turn to a brown color but some oaks show some color too. Here two different varieties of oak are leading in from opposite sides of the narrow path.
And since I was looking at the leaves and not the tree, I am not totally for sure on the varieties, but from the leaves, it appears to be a white oak and a red oak, even though the white oak that is more red at the moment.
As a kid learning about trees in 4-H, there was a little saying to help remember the white from the red oaks. Since the Native Americans used arrows, the red oak leaves were pointy and the white colonists used round bullets, so the white oak had round ends. So I wonder if these two oaks reaching in are making peace or war, but whatever the case may be, I will enjoy the display of colors.
Joining Oaks
This ‘farmer’ probably will need his winter boots and coat soon with the mention of snow for Friday. And instead of a hay dump rake, he will need a tractor loader to dump snow instead.
Old Hay Dump Rake
I think the fall asters are bright purple just so they don’t get lost and overlooked in the yellows and other autumn leaf colors.
Yellow and Purple
On a nice Sunday afternoon, I’m sure the roads are filled with people looking at the autumn colors and some are taking train rides through the colorful railways. I didn’t take a train ride so I just have to picture that I did and pretend I rode the tracks around the bend to more colorful spots.
Autumn All Aboard
Sometimes you have to look deeper to see a hidden gem. When admiring the colorful trees along the roadside, a small opening in the brush and trees gave a glance of something hidden and you just need to take the time to backup and investigate a little more. Finding the one small opening, nestled against a colorful slope, a farmstead across the valley floor could be seen by zooming in.
Course since I am short, I was grateful that my camera view finder would tip down so I could shoot over my head. That is much easier and safer than setting up a step ladder in the middle of the road to take the picture!
Hidden Barn
This lonely sentinel, which was placed in operation on October 11, 1897, carried out years of service but it didn’t draw masses crowds to visit it like other lighthouses, especially with no land access. No fancy brick or stone building, no awestruck view, nor a fancy spiral staircase to take you to the top of the light, just a ladder for this short forty-two foot lighthouse.
There is not even a keeper’s house next to it for company, but instead the keeper came on a plank walk from the LaPointe Light Station, which was a little more than a quarter mile to the east, to wind up the weights for the 1,200 pound bronze fog bell every four hours.
So the lonely forgotten Chequamegon Point Light on the end of Long Island in the Apostle Islands, did its task without much recognition, with a re-used fourth-order lens from the old LaPointe Lighthouse, to guide ships into Ashland’s port with its fixed red light. The lighthouse had even less human interaction when the light was automated in 1964 until it was deactivated in 1986, replaced by the tubular structure that is now used.
Ignored Old Plain Lighthouse
After an appointment yesterday, I officially joined the ranks of ‘leaf peepers’ as I wandered on some back roads looking for autumn color. With the dry summer, the colors are not as bright or as red as some years but once in a while you still find a pretty spot or two. Course when I’m ‘leaf peeping”, I hate to share the road so I can stop for a picture and therefore try to find less traveled roads.
And this ‘road’ is less traveled, which is a good thing since it is only wide enough for one vehicle at a time. And while the picture makes the road appear flat, the road is very steep, climbing about two hundred and twenty feet in a quarter of a mile so when stopping to take this picture, I tried to keep the car slowly moving ahead instead coming to full stop.
Looking out the driver side window, you see the sharp drop to the valley below and you wonder how the trees are even able to grow on the rocky, steep wall. The passenger side window reveals the steep rocky wall continuing upwards with only this narrow path cutting through.
I didn’t want to see how good my brakes were, so I went up the trail instead of coming down it. But worse is when you do meet someone else and one of you have to ‘backup’. I was lucky this time as I met no other vehicles but I did last year but was lucky that I was already was at the one spot where it is wide enough for two vehicles as I had parked to take some pictures of the rocks, otherwise it wouldn’t have been such a peaceful drive backing up and picturing myself as a little crumbled speck on the valley floor below.
Up an Autumn Trail
