As I look out my kitchen window, I cannot help but see that Autumn is approaching. At first, I saw a patch of color in the Pin Oak. Now there are several patches of colorful leaves. Each day as I eat lunch I check my tree. It is too dark in the morning as I eat breakfast. It is strange but that tree is always the last one to lose its leaves.

The dogwood tree on the upper side of the house has colorful leaves. The dogwood tree behind the house is still all green. Soon my fire bushes will be a bright red.

Sometimes if it is windy the leaves from the locusts fall like snow. When Dick planted them, he assured me the leaves would be no trouble. He was wrong. Those little leaves come in on everything. Snaps brings them in on his feet. I also carry them in. They also collect on the top of eavestroughs.

I also saw something that looked like the fluff from milkweed. I noticed some milkweed along our road. There are some in my son’s pasture. That means he probably has some butterflies.

I listened with interest to a news story about a young boy who was raising butterflies. They interviewed him at his facility. When I taught school, I raised butterflies several times. The one time I particularly recall is the day my fourth graders tried to let our butterflies go. We put the butterflies on sticks and took them outside. They flew right around us, but did not take off. One even landed on my shoulder. We could not seem to get them to leave. It was a Friday afternoon and I did not want to leave them in a jar over the weekend. We took the sticks and carried them to the woods beside the school. I later found out that a storm was approaching. I guess the butterflies knew about it and did not want to leave.

When I was teaching kindergarten, I did the experiment again. One of my students was so interested that he asked for a butterfly house for his September birthday. Once he got it, he brought it to school so we could raise our butterflies in it. We hung it up and watched the whole process.

Another sign of fall is the crows. They are back in rare form. Each morning, I hear them squawking their welcome song. Now, I am not against the crows but they do wake me up early. Their noise does not stop with the morning hours either. It seems they continue most of the day.

Last night I was out on the porch when Snaps needed out. The sky was beautiful. The stars were very bright. There was not a cloud in the sky. I could hear a different sound but I was not sure what it was. When I mentioned it to my son, he told me it was probably cicadas. He heard some too. The absence of lightning bugs was noticeable. I love to watch the little beams of light on my porch during the summer months.

When we were in Ohio visiting an Amish bed and breakfast, we watched the lightning bugs. One lady who I later found out was from Oregon asked what those little lights were. She had never seen lightning bugs. Now I am not sure if Oregon does not have lightning bugs or maybe she lived in the city and did not see them.

As I travel along the highways and byways I notice the change in wildflowers. My cousin posted a photo of goldenrod saying it is not the culprit of the allergies. I beg to differ since I know that a bouquet of goldenrod would do me in. I did an art project with my students one year and used dried goldenrod. That, too, bothered me.

I love the purple asters along the roadside. Some are lavender while others are brilliant purple. They do not seem to bother me at all. Don was well aware of my allergies and never tried to get me flowers. He had lived with a wife for years who also had allergies.

The grass does not seem to be growing as fast either. Now the guys come to mow my yard every couple weeks. In the spring it needed mowing every week.

Most likely we will have frost soon. The temperatures have dipped into the low forties already. I still have my fan in the window and am still using it to cool the room off. Don called me his Eskimo. I like to sleep where it is cold. We never had heat upstairs until we put in a gas stove.

Autumn is one of my favorite seasons. I love to watch the deciduous trees and their leaves. I saw a prediction of the fall color scheme. This area, it said, should be at its peak during the second week of October. We will have to wait and see.

Ann Swanson writes from her home in Russell.. Contact at hickoryheights1@verizon.net.