Cold, Wet, Raining again!

In the above picture I was able to photograph two Common Mergansers in this local pond.
Traveling to Warren, Pa ( my home town), yesterday I got a picture ( below)looking out at the Allegheny River right where I grew up spending the summers in my parent's cottage. I used to travel up and down this river daily in my canoe. What memories, but that's another post.

Below is some of the pretty foliage in this area. A nice park where we ate a picnic lunch.

Back at home these two shots show some of the 100's of sea gulls that have come ashore in the sky above our home and landing in the fields across the road. Sometime this happens when there is about to be a change in the weather.
The weather folks are speaking about that white stuff in the next couple of days. :~(

Scenes From Around Home

The hard rain we've had didn't ruin all the leaves yet, but there is more rain and wind on the way for the next two days.

The Pin Oak always has some beautiful leaves.

Our rescue dog Tauqua, and Frosty like to cuddle.

This cold wet Goldfinch sits on a shepherds hook during the heavy rain.

We took a ride yesterday out to the Peninsula on Lake Erie, and this is what you see as you enter Presque isle. 

Back at home not far away, these cows cool off during a warm day.
More rain tomorrow, and cooler days to come.

More changing season shots

The Fall season is changing faster now. The fawns are growing up and are looking like young adults. This one plus 3 more were on the creek trail Tuesday afternoon. I also saw a small flock of Pine Siskins taking a breather snacking on some shelled sunflower seeds. Last year only one Siskin stopped here. The year before I had 100's.

With all the damp weather some of these mushrooms are quite large growing under our Spruce trees. This one about 6" across.

The creek trail has changed also. Gone are the soft grassy trails that let me walk quietly and sometimes sneak up on the wildlife. Now with all the dried up leaves paving the way it is very noisy, and I have to be more alert for any movement. Crunch, crunch.

The mornings are getting cooler too, and we have already begun to fire up the wood stove.

The tree you see in the background is a Norway maple, and will hang onto it's leaves longer than any other maple. At least it is turning yellow. Some years it will remain green even till snow flies.

Of course Halloween is getting closer too.

The ever bearing raspberries are quite nice now that the Japanese beetles have all gone.

We had quite a gusty rain and wind storm last night leaving us with 1" of rain. The creek is really high, and the beaver dam has almost washed away. I have a picture I took this afternoon and will post it tomorrow.

This week

It has been a beautiful week so far, and I have taken so many pictures, I'll probably never get them all posted, but here are a few earlier this week.
The first shot is a mature wild cucumber seed pod. The wild cucumber is about the size of a small kiwi. As it dries, it becomes this light tan color and the bottom splits open to let the seeds fall out.

A look at the underside shows the seeds which are about the size of watermelon seeds. There are 4 separate compartments each containing a seed.

With all the rain we had last week, the creek was up a bit and damaged the beaver dam. They are busy at work again. This was a 7 ft. Sumac tree, 4" in diameter, and after they chewed it down, they didn't use it.

Speaking about Sumac. There are always so many different color leaf patterns
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Beneath our Spruce trees in the front yard are 100's of these tiny mushrooms.

On Monday when we went to Lake Erie, I found this Lesser Scaup swimming with a flock of Mallards, and Canada geese, all waiting for a handout.

Guess that's all for today. I'll try to post more from this week on Sunday.

Rain coming again tonight :~( We really don't need any more right now.

Last night we had our first heavy frost. See my header.

Watery Wednesday

Since it has been raining on and off for the past 2 days, we haven't ventured out much. We did have to go to the grocery store, and on the way home you can see what the rain has done bringing down lots of leaves.
To see what 2sweetnsaxy has done with this meme, click on http://waterywednesday.blogspot.com and see lots more watery shots.

Catch Up

A few catch up shots. More rain and lots of fog today, so looking back at these from a couple weeks ago.
The Ornimental Cabbage still looks good! The leaves from our big Norway maple tree in our front yard. It usually keeps it's leaves green till almost December, but this year the leaves are beautiful and mostly yellow.
In autumn, the days get shorter and the temperatures get cooler. The sun doesn’t warm the leaves as directly or intensely as it did during spring and summer. In these shorter, cooler days, the process of making food within the leaves ceases. As this occurs, the leaves use the food they’ve stored throughout the summer. This causes the leaves’ green pigment to become less dominant, and gives other colors an opportunity to be displayed.

Walking on our creek trail I came upon 3 deer crossing the water to the oposite side. Only 2 are visable.

Down the path farther on the limb where the wood ducks usually rest is this big Great blue Heron. Sorry the shots aren't very good color. It was in the late afternooon, and the sun was shining right on him. I just concentrated on taking pictures before he spied me and took off.

Looks like he's sleeping.

Talk about a bad hair day!

Under the chin itch.

Another yellow maple tree.

At the beach looking at the dried grasses.

One morning the temperature was 24 deg. and frost everywhere.

Jalyn and Becca playing in the leaves.

Just around home

Taking a short ride around our area between the rain drops we did see some nice color. After checking out some of the condos at the local ski resort, we had stopped at a stop sign when this big Red Tailed Hawk dropped out of the sky and caught something. After he ate it he flew up to this sign, and then along came a car, and he was off to the skies again. I didn't see a red tail, and wonder if he is a juvenile.

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A look at the ski resort in early Fall..

This gaggle of Canada Geese line the front yard of a home on Findley Lake.

Findley Lake has this water wheel that runs all summer at the low end of the Lake.

Some of the leaves have begun to turn.

Last but not least these clouds are present almost daily. We had very high winds today and 1" of rain.

Just Stuff

Just playing catch-up. I have so many pictures that I never get to post. Here are just a few
This airplane flew rather low over the field across the street. In case I forgot to mention I found another Monarch caterpillar. I had this one for 2 days and he attached to the jar lid last night. We'll check in 10 days and get pictures. I've asked the granddaughters to name it. Stay tuned...

It's mushroom season, and this one growing under our pine trees.

I discovered this beauty right by our front steps. I have a very good mushroom ID book, and can't locate it in the book!

It's time to find some great dried weeds too. These are the seeds from the Wild Parsnip plant. It is an invasive plant that can give you a nasty rash if you come in contact with the "juice".

One morning this spider web was strung from our "kids" Jeep antenna to the car body.

A somewhat rare sighting this summer of a Monarch butterfly.

Another dried weed seed pod.

More seed pods.

On our trip last week-end to Deer Park, there were 2 very beautiful peacocks. This is one, and I'll post more pictures on Saturday.