Fall

I’m all amp’d not just because the chinny hens are starting to dig redds here, but also because I can smell that heavenly aroma of apple cider and fresh baked donuts wafting down from the 100-year-old cider mill just upstream. But the season doesn’t last long down here. Wait ‘till mid-November and you might as well kick out the .270 and thaw out some of last years venison for deer camp chili.

It’s also time to start wearing your fleece again. Not so much because it’s getting a bit nippy out but just because you like to wear fleece.

Fall is also the time when you’ll notice a few things start to go missing - like daylight, chlorophyll and then the leaves themselves, and warmth just to name a few.

On the other hand some things get bigger like kypes, racks, girths and necks. Starlings congregate by the thousands and wing around in massive undulating swarms but never seem to really leave at all. But the killdeer really leave, as well as the cedar waxwings, the kirtland’s, the robins and the red-winged black birds and the barn swallows left long ago.

These are the 'ember' months—Sept, Oct, Nov and Dec and the Clinton River noids are on the move so I'm going fishing. - WES