Socktober

Day 353: It...Sock...Tober. The first snow dusted Elbe Hills last week, and if I'd gone out an hour earlier this morning, I might have found a few patches of frost in the colder parts of the yard. The cucumber vine blackened, having given me precisely one cucumber, and the leaves on the mulberry (ever fruitless) are beginning to look rather limp. While the garden is in its throes, the vine maples are celebrating. Although I can't quite label this a "Red Year," they're coming close. Multiple conditions determine whether Acer circinatum turns red, orange or yellow, or whether it goes straight to brown, and the formula is too complex for mere humans to figure out. I'd call this year "mahogany." There's enough red in it to satisfy any leaf-peeper's soul even though it's not as fiery as it sometimes is. But it is definitely Socktober. My toes can attest to that.