Rain almost all day has brought down many of the remaining attached leaves. This was yesterday….

Three years ago on this day we day-hiked past Blood Mountain, and somewhere along that stretch of the AT (if I remember right) could see downtown ATL in the shimmery haze.*

Today, you ask? Well, today I was shackled to the stove and kitchen environs, preparing for tomorrow. Lunch: check. Most of dinner: check. Wine!: now!

* And, geeze, was the lens dirty!

Sorry for the late post; we spent the day in Athens! Our visit to the dead people was incidental to Other Events. This cemetery is within UGA’s limits, and is a popular place for picnicking, sunning, and the like. We just took a few photos and kept going.

Thank you for harboring the snow, O Leaf of Liriodendrum tulipifera.

Several worthy topics arose today, but I’m going to confine myself to an easy one.

We saw snow today.

Yes, we were in Georgia. But way north Georgia. At elevations above about 2700 feet, in a few very shady places, we saw a few streaks of grainy, persistent snow. So, winter’s here, or our version, anyway!

Glorious afternoon today, but probably rain in the days to come. In the meantime, feast your eyes on the sky reflecting in Lake Clara Meer. In the foreground, the bald cypress are still attired in most of their leaves (which look like needles; don’t know why they’re not needles, but I’ll take Wikip’s word for it…hmm, I guess needles are just a shape of leaves…).

Okay, KW, here ya go: a picture series from yesterday’s hike.

BTW, the image above is looking through the not-falls—the drought and general autumnal conditions mean there wasn’t enough water to make even a trickle over the outcrop….

I love that daylight comes and stays and goes here from all angles, without the limits we experience at our urban abode. I love finding low-angle shadows here and there, in the beginnings and endings of the day’s light.

After our late morning shopping expedition (miscellaneous hardware supplies), we took the long way back from Curtis, thereby circumnavigating* the lake. We stopped to photograph a field of near-harvest-ready sunflowers, and a pair of Sandhill cranes rose up from the far side of the field and flew over the sunflowers and our heads, vocalizing all the way! Exciting! [But mediocre photos.]

Our last photo stop was at the boat ramp/public access on a lovely curve of the Manistique River, where I greatly enjoyed capturing vegetative reflections in the relatively quiet river-surface.

Diary note: cleaned ashes out of wood stove (five trays) and outhouse bucket is now reloaded.

Late afternoon addendum: RIP Aunt NTM.

* Circumnavigate in the dictionary refers to travel aboard (a sailing) ship. Circumambulate means to circle something on foot. I don’t know of a word for traveling around something in a land vehicle.

The wind was out of the north today, and the waves crashed on the beach at Hurricane Creek. We found it too cold to even wade for a few minutes.

Are we now Georgia wimps?*

The car said the temp was 46°.

I swear: this is the true color of a morning glory that I saw just over a year ago….