Not long ago I sat by the lake, camera in hand, thinking about Neal Young singing “Harvest Moon.” Even though the weather still felt like summer, I knew it was fall because the trees I passed on my walk to the lake reminded me of Donovan singing “Mellow Yellow.”
But it’s now that time of year when I’m usually thinking of The Mamas and Papas singing “All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray.” So, before I start thinking of Procol Harem singing “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” I thought I’d better get around to posting some of my relatively recent photos of fall.
Owen Conservation Park is close to our house so I often go there to wander its 97 acres of prairies, oak savannas and woodlands. Wildflowers flash their colors in the spring, but it’s a beautiful place to hike any time of the year and fall is no exception.
In the prairie, the leaves of grass (sorry Walt Whitman) were mostly brown, but the leaves on the surprisingly abundant sumacs were very red. A large colony of them spread like a fence in front of some very tall maple trees that were glowing yellow in the afternoon sun. The ground was littered with brown, orange, yellow and red leaves. The crisp air paired perfectly with the crunchy foot steps of the season. You can enjoy the sound below.
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Most of the time I walk around our neighborhood. Our neighbors have a beautiful ginkgo tree in their front yard. It’s full of golden leaves this time of year and, unlike other trees, when gingkos decide to drop their leaves they all fall on the same day!
The name of our neighborhood is Spring Harbor. It’s called Spring Harbor because it has a spring near a harbor. When the Ho-Chunk (aka Winnebago) Indians lived in this area they named the spring “Makamai” which means “medicine springs.” It was later named Merrill Spring by local settlers. The water from the spring collects in a cistern built by the Wisconsin Emergency Relief Administration in 1934 and then flows into Lake Mendota. Today an engraved rock commemorates the original indigenous name.
The harbor is small but there’s a boat launch that’s used frequently when the lake is still liquid. This launch allows access not only to Lake Mendota, the largest of Madison’s four Yahara River lakes, but also to Lakes Monona, Waubesa and Kegonsa, which can be reached via locks and the river. People often like to fish from the pier, so this harbor is quite popular.
I guess I’ll finish with some miscellaneous autumn photos. I love watching the green turn to red and yellow, watching the red and yellow turn to brown, and watching the world evolve from summer to fall and to winter.
Farewell to fall.
I started this about a week ago and really thought I could finish it sooner. But, eating turkey can really slow a fella down. Unfortunately, when I woke up this morning I could hear Procol Harem singing. So, I guess the world is now a whiter shade of pale.