Rural Happenings at Round The Bend

One day when leaving the grocery store I looked at the sky and thought how the clouds looked like a watercolor painting. It made for a gorgeous fall day.

 (for Anni's Thursday Theme Song)

Just a few days later I glanced out my dining room window and saw the quarter moon. Whenever I see a quarter moon I can't help humming or singing an old Jennifer Warnes song:

"Sun goes down on the silky day
Quarter moon walking through the Milky Way...
               ..........
It's the right time of the night
The stars are waking above
It's the right time of the night.... "
   

For Friday's Fences last week some of you will remember a similar shot of this fence with all the lush yellow flowers. The flowers lined the fence for a good distance and were a bright cheery spot along our rural road.

Well, this is how the fence line looks currently. The farmer sprayed the fence line and it's all browned out now except for some strong-willed vines. (Sorry, you have to look hard for the lines of the fence.)

 Still, the red leaves in the evening light are delightful.

We're seeing the deer on a daily basis now in the yard and surrounding field. They make a regular path each day from one oak tree to another eating the fallen acorns. This is the last of the fawns to have any spots. I took these just a few days ago but noticed last evening the spots on the back are fading fast. All the other new fawns have already taken on their darker winter coat.

 A closeup outside my sun room window of the acorn munching!

 A small buck watching me in my window.

An even smaller and younger buck who still has velvet on his horns. Velvet provides nutrition and growth to deer antlers. This special tissue is a type of skin, loaded with blood vessels and nerves, that regenerates every year. Because deer shed their antlers annually, they need dense and rapid growth of their antlers to occur every year. By fall, antlers are fully grown and the bone cells die. Velvet dries up and falls off.

This little squirrel is beginning to show up on a daily basis as well.  The fall stealing of the walnuts has started. Yesterday I watched this little one pull that walnut from the limb and sit there and strip the shell away enjoying every morsel. Today he was grabbing them and running away with them. No doubt he was storing them away somewhere for the winter.
Also linking to Rural Thursday, Skywatch, and Friday's Fences.