Autumn walk

On Tuesday, our first day back home after vacation, I dug in and accomplished things: laundry, groceries, bread baking, school, pet retrieval of rabbit, hamsters and dog from their various vacation homes, horseback riding lessons, exercise.

Then on Wednesday, we blew the whole morning on a fall walk in the woods.

It was overcast, supposed to rain by late morning. We wanted to get in a last walk before the leaves were all driven to earth.

We hadn’t walked far before we startled four whitetailed deer. They ran out of our path, but walked along parallel to us for awhile, watching us curiously.

Their coats have faded significantly since our walk here in the summer. They blend in well with dead leaves and tree trunks now.

We walked a little farther along a trail punctuated here and there by little boardwalks.

This little downy woodpecker allowed us to get quite close.

Then we reached the pond.

We started a pair of wood ducks as we arrived. While there, we observed some birds flitting among the grasses but weren’t able to get a good look. We heard two pileated woodpeckers having a good laugh on the other side of the pond, and we saw one of them — too far away for a picture, though.

Then we headed back.

We’d collected quite a few leaves along the way, so when we got home we ironed them between waxed paper, sorted them, and labeled them.

We spent some time writing in our nature journals, then assembled wreaths.

The girls hung theirs on their bedroom doors; mine is at the end of the hall. We like having these reminders of a fall walk.

Usually we do our book work in the morning, while we’re fresh. But on this day, it worked out even though we put it off until the afternoon. On the whole, it was a wonderful way to start the day, and we were glad to get in a walk before the rain came and necessitated umbrellas.