This time of year, I become obsessed with pumpkins. I want to bedeck our house with gourds of all different sizes. Vibrant orange pumpkins are my winter squash of choice, although I know they are surpassed in eating quality by varieties like butternut and buttercup. The outward appearance of many of these sweeter squashes is too pale or merely green, the colors of late or early squash instead of peak.

There’s something satisfying about a hefty squash. It’s like a meaty acorn in a blue jay’s cache which holds out hope and calories against the clouds looming on the horizon, dark and swollen with the first threat of snow. The ephemeral plumpness of wild grapes can’t compare.

This morning seemed like November. The early light washed out fall’s color scheme so that dramatic clouds overlooked a pale orange landscape. I know that late fall has its own charms, but right now the prospect feels bleak. So here are some pictures in honor of fall’s colors before they’re gone.

I stepped outside yesterday and saw no sign of the forecasted frost in our yard. The dogs and I walked through the debris of fall, like the yellowing leaves and spent goldenrods. A creeping cold infused the calm air, forcing me to keep switching the hand holding the leashes with the hand in my pocket.

Out at the edge of the woods, the scene changed. Dandelion leaves were outlined in white and tufts of grass glittered. A distant lawn seemed dusted by an early snowfall. Lone trees and buildings cast dark, frost-free shadows in the lawns carved out of our forest. Across the fields, a line of sunlight drained down a row of trees as the sun slowly crested a hill, bringing the warmth that would eventually melt the frost away.

Fall has ushered moisture back into the landscape. Last week I approached the creek bed on our land and heard water happily murmuring to itself. Silt had turned the steady flow grayish-blue, as if the water retained a vague memory of the recent storm’s origin in the Caribbean. Ripples crowned the surface. All the leaves and other organic matter in the bed had led to clumps of foam which emitted trails of bubbles.

My walks take place in a damp world of soggy paths and darkened tree trunks. Often when temperatures fall in the evening and the air loses capacity for holding moisture, a cool mist coalesces among the trees. It pores in wide bands over sections of my ride home. In the morning vast clouds fill the valley with great wisps of mist rising towards the sky.

Often as I wait for my ride to work I sit on a stone wall beside the edge of a gorge which runs through the town. A box elder leans over the slope, currently thick with bunches of samaras. Another fruit is also present. Grape leaves entwine around the tree’s center and grapes drape in scant bunches.

Nowadays most people consume cultivated grapes like those grown in the surrounding wine country, leaving the smaller wild grapes for wildlife. In this case that might mostly be the gangs of introduced starlings which provide a year-round soundtrack while I wait for my ride. Farther afield plenty of birds and mammals will relish these sweet treats, like a gray catbird I watched picking and choosing among grapes hanging in a tree near my work. Unlike your average human consumer, these wild consumers will then scatter the seeds about with a little fertilizer.

Lately when we go out, we run over the baseball-sized fruit of a black walnut which litters the end of the driveway. The flattened and blackened remains don’t stay on the gravel long, and sometimes we see squirrels carrying them away. If we didn’t have commerce to rely on, the nuts from black walnuts and hickories would be a better target for foraging than greens or fruit. Unlike the sugary grapes, nuts are full of fat and protein and store a lot longer. These traits appeal to the squirrels and jays as well as humans.

Acorns are a traditional food source which is less appealing to modern human foragers. This year we’ve had a large crop. Acorns lie everywhere, alternately brown, tan, burnished red or streaked with different colors. Caps lie askew, empty of their nuts. Some acorns are excavated, leaving shells empty of meat. On a walk I picked up two green acorns with orange rings where the cap had been. I could see the appeal of harvesting large quantities for flour, despite the need for long soakings or boilings to get rid of tannins. They felt waxy and cool in my palm with a satisfying heft that would quickly reward a forager. Although they might already harbor weevil or moth eggs whose occupants would soon hollow out their insides. We most notice vertebrate herbivores, but often arthropods and fungi are more destructive from a plant’s point of view.

Views of our acorn crop:







My mother-in-law often recites “Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.” It’s true that an oak tree grows from something comparatively tiny. If you consider the massive quantities of acorns produced versus the small amount which ever take root, each mighty oak can be seen as the result of a mighty effort.