Fall Views: Searching For Color

Not much Fall Color

The days of Fall are running out and "Brown Season" will be here soon. However; before that happens we should get some spectacular Fall colors. At least I think we should, based upon what I see in town here. So, before everything goes to a dun color and the land is completely laid waste, I decided to head out to see if I could find any Fall color near to my usual routes.

The late October morning temperatures here are dipping into the 30's so I had to dig out more wool and thermal tights. Time for the "bootie/shoe" "transition season" footwear too. I used the Northwave boots I have, some ProViz PixElite thermal bib tights, These "feeture" socks I am trying out, A wool shirt from Showers Pass, a wool, long sleeved jersey from Bontrager, and my Riding Gravel vest. A tube sock thingie for the head with my Bell aero helmet. I took the Cuero long fingered gloves but I didn't use them. Finally, I used some old Tifosi sunglasses for the eyewear.

The winds were supposed to be out of the Southeast so Southward is the way I started out. There is a particularly good set of trees for Fall color on the corner of Griffith and Ansborough, so I thought I'd check that out first. On the way, I found that the gravel was horrendously chunky. The County was out doing road maintenance and just dumping truck loads of fresh gravel where farm traffic was highest. It made for some tough sledding, even with the Fargo's 2" wide Donnelly MSO tires. I also saw that the County was clearing ditches for snow. At one point I saw them back-hoeing out the West ditch.

The back hoe on the right was scooping out the ditch in preparation for Winter.

I got to the corner where I had hoped that I would see some good Fall color and........nuthin'! Huh! I was sure that those maples would have been on fire, like their cousins in town were, but they were still green yet! Who knows? I guess I'll have to come back in a week and check them out again.

The odd maple that actually was in color on the right here.

Barns for Jason: Looks like there are a couple maples in color over there at least.

The field work is about half done, and recent rains have put everything on hold for now. machinery sat idle in fields, and there was no activity at all that I could see. Some corn has been harvested, and by the looks of it around here, all the soybeans are in. In fact, the rye grass, a cover crop for Winter, is sprouting up in the bean fields now.

Loads of corn waiting to be binned for sale later sometime.

The Gen I Fargo handled the "super-chunk" like a champ.

Fortunately for me, I got out during what turned out to be the only Sunny part of the day. Later on it rained again, which will only post-pone the harvest later on into October, maybe even early November. We are supposedly getting a very cold stint to end the month, which will make the drying out take even longer.

I want ALL THE WHEELS on my tractor!

A nice bit of color there. That was the best I came across in my two hours of riding.

Late into my ride it became overcast and cooler, it seemed. then all of a sudden I felt warmer. Hmm... I suppose the air masses are battling yet between Fall and Winter. I saw where there was indications of snow in Northwest Iowa now. It won't be too long before we see the white flakes here, I bet.

Yep! This may be the last of the "Fall Views" posts, or one of the very last ones. Soon I will be posting black and whites and if it gets snowy early, I will be chased off the gravel roads and riding a fat bike in the woods. Hopefully we get to stay on the gravel through November. That would help me out a lot. We'll see......