Autumn

Well, maybe not for you folks in California or Texas....

But the temp was in the 40s this morning (degrees F) and some of the swamp maples have started to turn crimson. Wife saw a vee of ducks or geese the other day, sort of headed southish. The goldfinches have started to turn into drabfinches for the winter.

And we had two sharp-shin hawks in the back yard when I came back from fetching the newspaper. Youngster and adult, I think the offspring was harassing its parental unit for a free meal. Brings back memories of parenthood, it does.

But that means I won't be seeing the goldfinches for a while.

Labor Day weekend coming up, so we can go out to the interstate highway overpasses and wave at all the tourists headed south. Hope the suckers left lots of money behind.

Corporate Image

So I pick up the phone, and there's James Earl Jones wanting to talk to me about Verizon. Do I _really_ want to buy my phone service from Darth Vader?

Hung up on him, and then I got to thinking. Did I just trigger a command to the Death Star? Remember that old ATT slogan, "Reach out and touch someone."

Roadkill du jour

Seems to be gray squirrels. Bunch of them, enough to make up a decent stew. Some seasons, the road looks like it's coated with a thin furry carpet. I assume they are the latest crop of youngsters, fresh out of the nest and going for their own Darwin Awards.

Asters blooming all over the place, another sign of fall. When they go to seed, we'll get to watch the finches get silly, landing on the stalks and bending them down to the ground and walking along them and pecking at the seeds.

Those are some of the real joys of riding the same route every few days for half the year. At bike speeds, I can see changes every time, new flowers, new birds, new corpses, whatever.

15.3 miles, 1:03:20