Fall on the Prairie

Looking across the prairie yesterday, I realized it was a fall prairie. The prairie of fall has its own beauty, but a sad kind of beauty as it heralds the changes to come.

The grasses are no longer green. Instead, stalks of reddish-brown wave in the wind. The oranges of butterflyweed and purples of bergamot and anise hyssop are faded to tan and white.

The prairie sounds different, too. There are more crickets and grasshoppers singing - singing their final songs before dying. The wind rattles the dried stems and leaves of the cupplants.

And that wind carries a hint of the winter that is to come - even on a day like yesterday with warm sunshine, you can tell that winter is just out there. Waiting...

Turkey vultures and geese flew over, heading south. Goldfinches "po-ta-to chip"ped above, rising and falling on invisible trails across the prairie as they trekked from one side of the woods to the other.

Fleeting - enjoy the beauty of fall while it is here.