Anticipation

We look forward to autumn in our home, and we do our best to begin enjoying the season early, even if that means pretending a bit. My wife recently baked a homemade apple pie to help usher in autumn, and I couldn't help but notice a hint of orange in a few of our dogwood leaves yesterday. The late summer flowers, like Joe-pye weed and goldenrod, also tell me that fall can't be too far away.

I'm actually cheating a little this year. I need some big-water smallmouth photos, so Nathaniel and I are Lake Erie bound in a couple weeks. Even in northern Pennsylvania, the season won't be in full force in mid-September; however, I'll bet it'll look and feel a lot more like fall than it will in Georgia!

Of course, today's expected high temperature is only 73 degrees, and the 10-day shows average highs right around 80. That may not be a true fall forecast, but it definitely suggests a break from the dog days. Maybe we should make a scarecrow this weekend? My wife did bake fall leaf sugar cookies this morning.