Pumpkins in the woods....

It is that time of year again....and all those pumpkins are looking for this...

or this.

 The annual two week rifle hunt for deer is on in our neck of the woods. Bow season starts earlier and carries on after this two week period, but for the rifle season, all hunters are required to wear blaze orange. We are located in an hunting area, private camps are around us as well as crown land and county forest, where hunters have been coming for years. It is wise to wear orange when out and about, so I don my orange fleecy for regular walks on the road, and even in our bush, as one never knows when someone has come wandering in by mistake. 

Once this madness is over, I feel a sense of freedom, as the bush empties out, and we can wander at will without concern.

We are finally getting regular frosts, after the October 23rd frost that put paid to my late blooming marigolds and nasturtiums. The kale pops back to vertical every day, despite the now regular nightly coating of frost. We are having a run of beautiful, crisp, sunny fall days, the frost causing the final aspen and maple leaves to come drifting down once the morning sun hits the canopy. Beech leaves hang on, and will stay until spring when the swelling buds dislodge the old leaves, which will fade from yellow, to coppery bronze before spring arrives.