Color in My Kingdom

I still have some really nice autumn photos from the past few days, but I think today I'll just show you what's going on in my corner of the universe.

Here's the female mulberry tree. The male one didn't look too healthy this year. I'm hoping it's not going to die. These two trees have given me several fantastic photos- see link at end for two of them

This is the paper birch I planted about 30 years ago. It's probably too close to the house, but oh, well. It almost died, and then came back, so part of the trunk is ugly. I have to keep trimming it away from the roof. It sheds leaves all over my front flower bed. That creates a big mess to clean up in the spring, but I think it has also improved the soil there tremendously. It's always golden in the fall.

The Sedum elecombeanum that I like so much in the rock garden with its yellow-green leaves all summer and bright yellow flowers in June- turns red-orange in the fall!

There is a big patch of Winged Sumac just out into the field a little ways. I missed the peak of its color, but here is proof that maybe a week ago it was bright.

Here is a picture from last year that shows how beautiful that clump can be.



And my parting shot is one of those "huh?" moments. I posted last year that the maple tree I planted as a sapling about 6 inches tall in 1991 got autumn color for the first time ever. It's the darker orange tree behind the yellow mulberry. That was taken October 31, so almost exactly a year ago.



Here's what it looks like this year. It has very little interest in changing color for me. You can see a few hints of orange/salmon on the edges of some leaves. But it's a nice tree, and I planted it, and it lived. So I like it.

I slept in this morning because I did not sleep well last night. Still got a fair amount done and took my 3-mile road walk.

Miles hiked in 2025: 416.2

See Pink, Blue, and Red

Caught Some Critters

Ludington School Forest has lots of squirrels. In fact, I'll bet if I checked back, most of the squirrel pictures I have taken are from there. Gray squirrels, anyway. And gray squirrels include black and white squirrels which are color morphs. They are all pretty jumpy, and hard to catch a picture of while you are walking fast through crunchy leaves. No chance to sneak up on one.

Today I caught a gray one...

...and a black one.

Oddly enough, the trees are not turning colors very much in the School Forest. This is the same tree (from a different angle) I showed you weeks ago, the one that turns red early every year. There is some yellow and a lot of the leaves have come down, but not much color.

I stole this idea from someone else. I didn't work very hard at it... like to find more leaves of the same kind. Long after I took the first picture, I found an orange maple leaf that was even bigger. If I had held on to the leaves until the end of the walk, I could have had 5 in that stack. But what I wanted to do was hike 3 miles in the hour before bell choir, so I needed to keep moving.

Did I succeed? Not quite. I ended up with 56 minutes to hike and made it 2.8 miles. So, I probably could have done those other two tenths in the four minutes. (A 20-minute mile is one-tenth in two minutes, so I am not fudging the pace.)

Got a lot done today on projects and editing in the morning. Finished the mowing in the afternoon, then bought screws, walked, and went to bell choir. That filled the day!

Fall just keeps being glorious! I will have more pictures for another day.

Miles hiked in 2025: 413.2

Ludington School Forest, miscellaneous trails, 2.8 miles

See Pepper and Salt

Exploring Old Grade

Today was pretty busy, but it was all good. In the afternoon, I stopped at the "Old Grade Campground" (Manistee National Forest). It's only the second time I've been there.

Can you guess how it got its name?

Yup! It was a railroad grade. But you know I can't be content with only knowing that. I had to know what railroad. This is not far north of the village of Peacock where two separate railroads crossed each other. However, it is on the north side of the Little Manistee River. So I couldn't quite figure what railroad this was.

Turns out, it's a logging line of the Manistee and Luther RR. Their main line went from Eastlake to Hoxeyville (never quite making it to either Manistee or Luther!). On the map, the red lines are Manistee and Luther. The topmost of the dark green arrows points to where I was today. And that means the railroad had a bridge across the river there. I wonder if one can find any remnants.

The lower dark green arrow points to Peacock where the light green Michigan E & W line crossed the Chicago and West Michigan line in magenta.

I was hoping to write about the loop trail at Old Grade for one of my columns. I have to think about whether I should do that. Some of the trail is in bad shape. I made it through with electronic help. The good portion could be done as an out and back. Anyway, I had fun. Here's where the trail begins.

When you get around on the other side of the loop, the trail briefly follows a small, unnamed creek that flows beneath hemlocks to the Little Manistee River .

Here are a couple of closeups. Red maple leaf- not just red in color, but it's a red maple.

And some needles from a white cedar which fell artistically on its horizontal trunk. I suspect squirrels bit these off and dropped them.

This all happened after I met with some people about some trail stuff, and I also did laundry. I worked on computer stuff a bit this morning, and my day was completely filled!

Miles hiked in 2025: 410.4

Old Grade loop trail and in and out from entrance 2.3 miles.

See Not Quite, But Quite All Right

More From Yesterday

There are more awesome things to share from yesterday, and today was quite ordinary, so I'll just go with the pretty things. Starting with the sunrise.

On the way home from the hike, Sue and I drove around Lake Gitchegumee, south of Buckley, and enjoyed the fall view.

But wait! What is out there? It's two adult trumpeter swans with three juveniles! There were four more as well, but they were hanging out with a bunch of Canada geese.

We managed to take some roads that were less traveled coming home and enjoyed an extended color tour. One stop for a quick picture at the overlook for Hodepyl Dam Pond. The reflection of the sky in the water was the best.

Today was a combination rest day and some puttering. I tried to make it more of a rest day, or at least tried to do things that weren't so much of the everyday pressing work. Mowed part of the yard. Last time before winter, I'm pretty sure. About half to go.

I did a little bit of work in my gardens- just moving a few things that I wanted to get fixed this fall.

See SPW at Highbanks Rollway

Spirit of the Woods Hike- October- Highbanks Rollway

The Spirit of the Woods Chapter of the NCTA holds its October hike at Highbanks Rollway, which is in the Grand Traverse Chapter miles. But we try to hit peak color because it's a beautiful hike above the Manistee River.

It was scheduled for last weekend, but got re-scheduled because of the weather forecast. Today was a little past peak color up there, but it was a lovely day, and not shabby.

Things did start out a bit iffy with fog so thick you could only see gray from the overlook. But that soon lifted to become only a layer of fog in the valley

This is quite a hilly section. In the 5.5 miles there is about 800 feet of elevation change with the biggest single climb being 250 feet.

The best color was on the way back to the trailhead. By then the sun was out. It had warmed from near freezing into the high forties. This is the riverbend at the actual rollway.

Possibly the best was the sun on bright yellow aspen on the other side of the river.

And another.

We had 21 people in our group. Here we are. Bob took the pic.

The location was extremely busy! Lots of families out for walks with the kiddos which is great to see. Most of the people weren't going too far from the trailhead, but that's OK. I'm just glad to see people enjoying the outdoors.

This isn't particularly special, but Plantain-Leaved Pussytoes presented itself nicely for a picture. Antennaria plantaginifolia.

Sue S from the chapter rode with me (it's a long drive and carpooling is good). We did some more leaf-peeping on the way home. Maybe those will be tomorrow's post.

Now... since I didn't get home till after 10 pm last night and had to get back up a 6 am today- I'm going to go lie down with a book.

Miles hiked in 2025: 408.01
Miles hiked on the NCT in 2025: 236.3

North Country Trail, Wexford County, MI. Highbanks Rollway to 29 1/2 Road and back. 5.5 miles

See Same Hike- 2024 See Wet Spring hike on the same miles