Hikes, Colour and Frost!

Thanksgiving Weekend has been amazing, beautiful weather, bright colours, lots of people out hiking, and then this morning, heavy frost!  You could feel the Arctic air moving in as the day wore on yesterday; it was down to freezing by the time we went to bed.  And this morning, the yard was white.  A lot of plants died abruptly, flowers faded, and summer was definitely gone!

On Friday I hiked a new-to-me section of the Bruce Trail here, and some of the leaves like these Beech leaves were just glowing in the sun.

It was mostly a deciduous forest, and in places you wouldn't know fall was here.

But then you came upon more of those bright leaves.

Overhead the leaves were glowing too, though it seems that these change colour between my camera, the computer I edit them on, the computer I post them on, and my ipad that I read blogs on!

We were intrigued to find substantial crevice caves along the cliff in the middle of the forest.  For about 100 yards the deep cleft in the limestone fell away at our feet.  It was really tempting to climb down and investigate!  I liked these three large cedars growing directly out of the limestone wall on the far side, 30 feet above the floor of the crevice.

There were lots of mushrooms too.

On Saturday, we headed south to visit relatives, as it seems everyone does at Thanksgiving.  Enjoyed the turkey and the visiting, and the drive home a day later was spectacular.  We took the new camper van and slept in the driveway, trying out the double bed arrangement - that's another story!

We thought the fall colour had almost never been better, mile after mile after we got about half-way home, of bright red and orange Sugar Maples in fencerows and along the edge of woodlots.

Our son and his wife from northern Ontario made it here late Sunday evening for a visit.  We could feel the temperature begin to drop sharply by 4 in the afternoon, and when I got up (before everyone else), the yard was white with the first heavy frost of the year.  I made my coffee and headed out to get some pictures of another sign of the seasons!

Whether it was the pot of mums on the deck, the Butterfly Bush, or the tomatoes, the frost got them all.  Time to put the last of the garden to bed now.  We enjoyed a very nice visit with our son and daughter-in-law, and sent them home with various things - I'm trying to downsize!  I puttered in the garden a bit, and then fell asleep for one of those late afternoon naps.  I've had my fill of turkey, like many other Canadians I'm sure.  And I'm not even going to comment on American politics this weekend!