Happy November!!
My Phenology site sure knows that winter is coming! I was so surprised to see that so many of the trees that had been full of leaves, even green leaves, only two weeks ago, had barely any left! The canopy is much more open, and I can see more of the river from the trailhead. As I walked down I noticed that the stairs and bridge were more slippery because of the leaves on the ground! The leaves on the honeysuckle by the bridge however, looked green and unchanged.
Getting down by the river I was SO excited to see all of the WATER that was rushing through the channel! With all of the rain this weekend the falls were absolutely rushing (and they usually aren’t at all), and the water level in the pool went probably ten feet higher up the bank than it had last time I visited. The pool was eddying around, with splotches of white foam on top and the water was super brown. I went over to check out a spot where I had crossed in previous times to go and fish at the bend in the river and it was totally covered up by fast moving water! On the map, this section is the bottleneck between the log and the areas with trees. It is hard to stress how much more water there was this time, but there was a LOT!
GA: Green Ash
C: Cottonwood
SM: Sugar Maple
NM: Norway Maple
B: Beech
HS: Honey Suckle
PB: Paper Birch
The areas labeled ‘trees’ I have not explored in detail yet! And the area labeled ‘shrubbery!’ has a detailed list of plants in my previous blog post in the section labeled ‘by the river’s edge’.
While I sat, I…
Heard: the rushing falls, cars, and random boys that came down with a bucket
Smelled: weed, the air smelled like a pumpkin
Saw: bright orange leaves on the trees on the cliff above the salmon hole, water rushing, the sun setting, lots of brown and grey
Touched: a wet log
Tasted: nothing! I was hungry.