Fall: A time to start over?

“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald.

At first, this quote by Fitzgerald didn't seem to make sense to me. Fall usually brings the first hard freeze, the end of the growing season.

Last week, a little bird (The National Weather Service) told me that lows during the night could drop below the freezing mark. I grabbed all the container plants that were still blooming outside and placed them in the basement with a grow light.

Some make it all winter. Some don't. Some are just not designed to bloom year round and rely on seeds to keep their legacy alive.
I was enjoying the late season flowers and tend to mourn their demise as the growing season comes to a close.

​The confused lilacs were still out and the roses were still budding.

​With great regret, I cut off the buds and readied the rose bush for its long winter's nap.

The garden was continuing to produce.

​ I had purchased some pumpkin seeds on sale in mid summer and hoped for a little longer growing season this year.

​The plants came up and produced pumpkins.

The pumpkins weren't ripe and he abandoned those in the yard for the mower to run over.

​He did find a sweet pepper to his liking and he ate it.  
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Nonetheless, the garden and the flowers are gone, but not forgotten.

However, it was a race against the colder weather and I think the pumpkins lost.
However, Sherman had taken it upon himself to harvest some of the young pumpkins and some of the leftover sweet peppers.

A Nov. 3 post from a user on the National Weather Service of Pittsburgh's Facebook page stated, "First frost and it's laid on thick. RIP over-extended growing season."

It is true that this year's growing season was a little on the long side.

According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, the median date of the first hard freeze for the region is October 14.  
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While it appears everything that was growing may be dead, there are still seeds. The seeds are dormant, not dead.

So it is true that life starts all over again in the fall.  
The signs of new beginnings might not be outwardly visible. Truthfully, new beginnings may be months in the making.
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The trees and their leaves show that the saying out with the old and in with the new applies to fall too.

As the flowers faded, so did the number of pollinators visiting them.
The bumblebees held on into late fall with their numbers dropping daily.
Sadly, most of the bumblebees I photographed have probably passed. The workers and males die and the queens are the only ones who hibernate. However, underground lies the beginning of a new colony just waiting for spring. 

As the monarchs have left for warmer climates, I found another butterfly that was still sticking around in late October.

The mourning cloak butterfly was displaying its colors as it enjoyed of the last warmer days. Mourning cloaks are one of the butterflies that overwinter in the region as adults. They are usually some of the very first butterflies to be spotted in the spring.

New beginnings were also starting in the whitetail community. Fall marks the start of next year's deer herd.

The deer were moving around as the rut progressed. The trail cameras picked up the different bucks traveling through looking for love.

My mom noted that the does seemed to be appearing earlier in the evening in her backyard. As I looked through last week's  trail camera photos, that was the case.

There was also a trend. When the does went through at night, they were then followed by some horny bucks. In my opinion, I felt that the does were out earlier so that they could eat in peace and were therefore not interested in dinner dating yet.

The girls' troubles didn't end there. The gang and I seemed to push them out of their beds in the morning. To add insult to injury, I also took photos of them when they had just gotten up.

Nonetheless, a trail camera outdid me again with a photo of a doe taking a drink at the neighbor's pond.
I will say the trail cameras are a little more dedicated than I am. I don't feel like being strapped to a tree 24/7 in all kinds of weather waiting for the perfect moment.

That's just the nature of things 'round here.