Kawhump - or Fall didn't last long

Monday & Tuesday were beautiful, color had finally reached a lot of our trees. We had our first low-20s temperatures Tuesday night. Wednesday AM, the ground was littered with mostly-green leaves from Osage orange, mulberry and silver maple trees, and those trees were mostly bare. The leaves will just have to mulch themselves, because the lawnmower died a couple of weeks ago. I prefer nice crisp leaves on the lawn, because they're so much fun to walk through.

I've been cutting up firewood that I couldn't get out last winter/spring/summer because of the snow & ice/muddy creek crossings/heat. Our wood-burning furnace is running and puts a bit of aroma in the air. We burn mostly Osage orange & honey locust, the thorny stuff with a high heat content. The Cottage gets elm, maple and eastern red cedar.

One anomaly this year is the lack of "hedge apples" (fruit of the Osage orange) and honey locust pods. The early spring and late freeze did them in. Deer will be hurting for mast this winter, since to only trees that produced many nuts were the shingle oaks (red oak family). As soon as deer season is over, I'll put out a feeder below the Cottage.

We still have room for a mid-November getaway and for the weekend after Thanksgiving. Check out availability on-line.