The days are officially getting shorter, the weather cooler, and the trees are getting their signals to start changing their colors. It seems like Autumn goes by quickly. That no sooner does the foliage change than the leaves start piling in our yards. Cool and sunny afternoons turn into rainy, cold days, and before we know it Old Man Winter is knocking on our door.
If you’re like me you enjoy bundling up in a warm sweater and spending time outdoors amongst the yellows, oranges, and reds. Raking leaves has never been an unpleasant task for me. If you’re lucky you’ll have the opportunity to spend some time to enjoy the scenery. Before you plan your outing, here are a few helpful resources that may help you plan your journey:
Helpful Sites:
Leave No Trace: How to enjoy the outdoors ethically and responsibly.
Fall Foliage Maps by Region. The Weather Channel has a great mini-site advising when to expect foliage color changes.
Leaf Identification Websites:
www.fw.vt.edu/dendro/forsite/key/intro.htm
www.uwsp.edu/cnr/leaf/treekey/tkframe.htm
www.treelink.or/whattree/index.htm
Recommended Field Guides:
Peterson First Guides: Trees by region
National Audubon Society Field Guide: Trees by region
National Audubon Society Field Guide for birds
Pocket Naturalist Guide: Trees & Wildflowers by state
Take-Alongs:
Binoculars
Camera
Drawing paper, pencils, watercolors
Plan ahead and enjoy this time of the season. It doesn’t last long!
What’s your favorite part of Autumn?
Jennifer can be also be found at Unearthing This Life where she shares excerpts of the life she spends with 7 chickens, 2 cats, 1 frog, 1 fish, 1 child, and 1 husband (there can only be so many to look after!).
Not Dabbling In Normal 
Beautiful photos!
I love autumn, love the colors, the cooler temperatures, bundling in sweaters, preparing the pantry for winter. The only thing that spoils it is winter is coming, usually sooner than later. I always hope for a nice long fall though.
-Brenda
Fall is my favorite season. I am not doing cold weather gardening this year. I have pretty much put my beds to bed 🙂 with some nice composted manure and straw. I have a couple of pics on my blog. Now I can sip cider (yum) and dream of next year’s bounty! Gardeners are eternal optimists!
Hi Jen! Really nice post and links and photos. I was just grooving this morning on the lovely not-quite-stormy autumn day we’re having here. Made a squash-parsnip soup and the whole house smells like fall.
By the way, I dropped out of sight because for some reason I’m unsubscribed from the email alerts– reupped again! (If you don’t hit me over the head with the blog, I forget to look.) Now I have to go back and read a couple months worth of posts.
The sight of those leaves reminds me of something else I love about Autumn ~ the sound of the scritch, scritch, scritch the rake makes when gathering them all together, and then jumping into the pile – just to do it all over again.