OCTOBER!

My favorite month (at least right now!)

Autumn leaves glow in the afternoon sun along a Clayton County road.

Sure, October is my favorite month!

At least that’s my vote for now as I savor the ongoing delights of this fall season!

Maybe it’s because I like the applesauce from the bumper crop produced by our old Wealthy tree.

We can’t keep up with the bushels of fruit that have rained down. Friends, deer, rabbits, and insects have shared the plenty.

Bald-faced hornets feast on the juice of windfall apples in our compost pile.

Farmer friends mostly welcomed the warm and dry weeks to get a jump on crop harvest.

But there came a point where they were glad for the rain showers that brought a break in the dawn-to-dusk grind – and added a bit of moisture to soybean pods to reduce the loss from shattering.

A combine stirs up dust from a dry soybean field near Traer.

Northeast Iowa’s fall color show, as often happens, materialized by fits and starts, with forests of still-green oaks contrasting with yellowing cottonwoods and bright-red sumacs. Some walnut trees started shedding leaves a month ago, leaving clusters of nuts hanging on bare branches. But be careful walking under those trees, lest you get smacked by a falling walnut that finally decided to let go!

The walnut tree on the right remains green, while its companion on the left has dropped most of its leaves.

Many of our prairie flowers are fading, but several species of purple-pink-white-blue aster species still tint the woodland edges. Their blossoms beckon bumblebees and other insects seeking a drink of a late-season nectar.

On an outing to Pike’s Peak State Park, near McGregor, we were lucky to find witch hazel shrubs in bloom. Their tiny, twisted, yellow petals are distinctive for flowering in the fall.

You must look closely in the fall to find a tiny yellow witch hazel blossom.

The view of the Mississippi River from Pike’s Peak is one of Iowa’s most iconic locations for autumn “leaf-lookers.” But with colors not quite at the peak during our visit, we were content with watching a flock of gulls on the sandbar far below, and an occasional migrating turkey vulture drifting southward along the bluff.

Gulls loaf on a sandbar in the Mississippi River below the overlook at Pike’s Peak State Park, near McGregor.

Through the years, we’ve learned that the color show often is right under our noses – out our windows, on our gravel road, or where we may take it for granted.

Countless fall tourists stop to snap photos of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church and the colorful bluff behind it in Elkader.

Many spring and summer nesting birds have migrated south. But our resident bluebirds continue to regularly entertain us with their splashing in our bird bath.

Bluebirds share a bath on a warm October afternoon.

We even find beauty in the occasional rainy days, which may actually seem to enrich the hues.

Ah, October! (Hoping May doesn’t get TOO jealous . . . It’s her turn next spring!)

Raindrops hang on bittersweet berries after an October shower.

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