There's a Smell in the Air...

Could it be the flowers of Autumn?

I took this pic this morning.

The colors are slowly beginning to change up here, starting with the red of the maple trees. Fall’s grand finale will be the yellow tamaracks in October. The green ferns that stood tall and proud all summer long are now bending over, tired, sporting a light cocoa hue. Before Labor Day weekend it was still comfortably warm during the daytime but the nights were getting cooler. We haven’t fired up the wood burner yet, but we have turned on our electric heaters. Last night was the second night in three days we had to cover the gardens with sheets and blankets.

As I sat by a bonfire last weekend at the log cabin, I took this picture of the setting sun enclosed in a white circle. Beautiful and burrrrrr is all I could think. Frost crystals circling the sun?

With the contrasting temps, we awoke to find the river misty with wisps of fog Saturday morning. A female wood duck strutted her neck while floating down the river apparently on a mission because she was gone before I could snap a pic. Then we realized Bear was standing in the river looking at the wood duck as she disappeared around the bend.

It was a bit eerie for me fishing in the thick woods without a sound except the occasional crow squawk. And to top it off, Steve accidentally bought green crawlers from the bait shop. Yes, I said green. 

The worms are gone but here's proof. Steve paid $3.99 for the worms and got in the truck and said, "Wow, worms are expensive here." When he found out he missed the label which read "green" crawlers, he understood why they cost more. 

Please don't buy them again. Thank you.

I felt like I was hooking a small alien snake or an 8" worm that had been harvested from some nuclear plant. Gave me the creeps. I didn't even get a nibble!

Then the slightest crack of a twig had me scoping out my surroundings, expecting to see a grand but scary wolf checking me out. But no, it was my two-dog posse: Bear and Ike were lying off to the side of the path under some brush watching me. Oh, my guard dogs.

After SciFi worm got hooked in an overhead limb, I decided to quit fishing for the day.

On another note, we were thrilled to be able to go downstate last week and visit with our oldest son who we haven’t seen for 8 months while he was in Idaho. It was HOT down there and we enjoyed the final days of summer as best we could: sitting on our son’s front porch in rocking chairs, catching up on each other’s lives, swatting mosquitoes but not really caring about the bites, grilling out at sunset...

...and having lunch on the beautiful Muskegon River.

The pics are dark, but I had to share them anyway.

He is safely in Tennessee now. 

Sniff.

We probably won't see him until Christmas.

It's his birthday next week.

Kleenex please.

It was so good to spend time with him. 

But in ten days we get to see our youngest son and his girlfriend. J 

It will be a busy weekend (two weddings) but not so busy I don’t get a hug. 

Love that!

Yes, we awoke to frost on the car's windshield as well as on my one and only pumpkin this morning. I doubt this poor thing will be orange by Halloween. I bet I had 30 blossoms on my pumpkin vines this year, but only one seemed to survive whatever was eating those big orange flowers.

And I think we finally decided what it was and is.

At this moment it isn't the smell of fall flowers, or fall leaves, or anything else connected with Fall that lingers in the air outside and slightly in the house...

It. Is. Skunk.

I went outside last night around 9 to put the dogs in the kennel. When I walked out onto the porch, I was met with a horrific smell that I immediately recognized and it was oh so close. That split second I had the door open to the house was all it took for the rancid odor to slightly creep inside. I yelled at the dogs to kennel up, but it was too late. They were both rolling in the grass on their backs, onto their sides, then on their haunches wiping their faces in the grass. I almost joined them.

Today not much love is being passed around. When the dogs come close, we say "You Stink!" and they sit and look at us as if to say, "We know."

"You don't chase skunks!"

Just when I thought we were going to make it through the year without an incident with a porcupine or a skunk.

So that's the smell in the air around here.