A butterfly

Today in the garden I spy a butterfly with orange and black wings. It's sipping nectar from some purple flowers. It's called the Monarch butterfly. When the weather gets colder we won't see the Monarch any more. This butterfly flies South in the Fall just like some birds do. You can see where the Monarch flies at this website.
It's hard to imagine this fragile little creature flying thousands of miles!

Now it's Fall

Summer is over today.

Today is the very first day of Fall. What do you think we'll see in Fall?

Afterwards

When the wind stopped blowing, everything was a mess. The swimming pool was full of leaves.
The yard was full of little branches and sticks.
But the tiny little hummingbird was just fine.

I still want to know - where was he hiding when that mighty wind was blowing?

A Mighty Wind

The tail of a hurricane came roaring up hundreds of miles and lashed across our yard. It was only the very tip of the tail, but it was a very big hurricane and the tail was still very strong.

There were leaves and branches blowing everywhere - right off the trees and through the air. I wondered what would happen to the little hummingbirds.

Granddad came outside in the wind and said, "That's a pretty good breeze!"

Flowers

I planted lots of flowers in pots this year. I put them out in the sun by the pool. All summer I have been taking care of them and they have been blooming. Now they look tired.

It's okay, because now there are some bright flowers blooming that I didn't plant and didn't take care of and those flowers look wonderful.
The goldenrod is brilliant yellow.
The Autumn clematis looks like snow covering the hedge.
The butterflies love the purple iron weed.
And the bees love this fuzzy white weed.
What a nice thing, to have flowers just grow up by themselves.

Maple seedlings

We could be living in a whole forest of maple trees.

There were millions of maple seeds this year.

Now everywhere you look little trees are growing up.

Here's one growing on a rock in the water. And this one - what is it growing on?
It's growing on the broken-off stalk of a cattail!
They grow everywhere!

Counting cattails

Usually when you count cattails it's easy. There's one... and then another one,
Wait a minute! That's two - on one stem.
What about this? It's FOUR on one stem!

Counting cattails just got a lot harder.