The last of the fall color ...

Or at least I'm guessing that it is. Clouds rolled in yesterday afternoon and rain is in the forecast through Wednesday --- beating against the windows now --- but it's been a good run. The DNR report for the week of Oct. 28 noted the extraordinary colors in some of the oaks south and east of Chariton; at least I had sense enough to get out and take a good look.

The photos here are leftovers, taken Friday, first in the Corydon Cemetery looking west toward Corydon Lake Park, then inside the park itself. Pretty place, and a great picnic destination.

Do people actually have no-fuss picnics any more? And by that I mean bread, luncheon meat, chips, maybe a jar of pickles and grapes picked up on the spur of the moment at a grocery store then taken to the nearest location with a good view and consumed. Now, of course, there's Subway or its equivalent. But I'm not sure many of those sandwiches are consumed outdoors either.

Places I wish I'd gotten to, too --- any of the Stephens State Forest units, the wooded hills of northeast and northwest Lucas County and Newbern Cemetery, to look out over the White Breast valley. Maybe next year.

There's a blue streak indicating winter storm watch from Mankato northeast through the Twin Cities this morning. Glad I don't live there.

And here's a reminder from "this day in Iowa weather history," dated 1991: "After a major winter storm on October 30-November 2 unusually bitter cold air streamed into Iowa for much of the first half of November. On the morning of the 4th nearly every reporting station in the state fell into the single digits and remarkably some western stations reported their earliest subzero temperatures on record, including Sioux City where the low was -3 F. Des Moines and Waterloo both established daily records with a low of 4 F. The lowest temperatures reported on the morning of the 4th included -7 F at Sioux Rapids, -9 F at Hawarden, -10 F at Sheldon, and -11 F at Cherokee. Amazingly, even colder weather would settle across Iowa a few days later with nearly the entire state falling below zero on the mornings of November 7th and 8th." Brrr!

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And then there's Central Standard Time, which returned early Sunday. This seems kind of nice --- for about 15 minutes when after getting up a little late it occurs to you there's a whole hour more to get around and get ready for church.

But I was down along the South Chariton for lunch later with Mary Ellen and Jan, we'd walked out to take a look at the new erosion-control containment basin and then darned if it didn't start getting dark.

So by 4:30 p.m. --- until Saturday 5:30 p.m. --- everybody was headed home, not anxious to dodge deer at dusk in that stretch of territory between Cambria and Highway 2. By the time I got home, it was almost dark. Darn!