This time of year I find myself following the weather trends at the homes of my friends as much more than our own. As you can tell from the lack of activity here, I tend to go into hibernation come summer, and wait for the cooler seasons to show here.
But as I looked at the forecast this morning I was struck by just how autumn has come to all of you far off folks as we still swelter with the continuation of what most of you would call summer. Just yesterday I saw a post at Kottke.org about the fall color forecast for the whole nation. It kinda saddened me when I went and looked… I pulled the slider all the way to the right, all the way to Nov 14th. The map showed the whole nation as past peak except for my county (and other coastal counties) which still showed “no change”. Can you imagine…The whole country is past peak but we haven’t even started to change. But, by all means go check out the map, it’s one of the best I’ve seen…Fall Foliage Prediction Map
Today I started the day on the back porch, fans turning, but with the change in the seasons the sun is tracking further south and the back porch is now catching sun… and heat. So… I didn’t last as long as I would have liked. I was out long enough though to notice that we appear to be between Rubythroat migration waves. I only saw one hummer this morning. We have had two separate waves move through already and should see at least one more big one before I remove most of the feeders.
To top of my love of heat (not)… Today is Deere Day. I will be spending a number of hours later riding in circles around the yard dealing with this crazy year of grass…
That foliage map is great. I see what you mean about us being the tail end of it all, but so it is. I fear the hill country color’s not going to be so great this year either, because of the drought. Last year things pretty much dried and dropped, rather than turning. We’ll see.
I laughed at your mention of the grass. There’s a field across from me filled with some kind of grass that’s getting right up there — about 4′ tall at this point, and thick. I might put on my snake boots and go over there, just to see what it actually is. It looks like tallgrass prairie. As tall as the grasses are, they might be native. I’m bad enough with flowers, but sorting out one grass from another is tough. Well, except for Johnson grass. 🙂
Deere Day is long past for us in Southern Minnesota. I put stabilizer in gas and cleaned the undercarriage. I had hopes of mounting a snowblower on it – but then found out the price. We had one hard freeze, so expect the geese and cranes to be a little late this year. 🙂