Last Call

 

More or less.

 

This year, autumn pretty much nailed the equinox and with a vengeance. Hopefully, that's not a harbinger of a long hard winter to come.

 

Chill and dry (except that afternoon when six inches of rain pummeled the earth), as the light's gone longer and the day grows shorter, the prairie considers sleep.

While setting the stage for yet another spring.

 

A prairie is nothing if not fully prepared for what goes around coming around, as it will. As it must.

 

Increasingly, life lays low.

That'll only accelerate once the season's first frost/freeze arrives. They say that might happen late tonight, in the dark before dawn.

 

Being as a prairie is exceptionally hardy, basking in late season sun will continue on past that.

Lacking a sudden cruel winter, autumn life will inevitably rebound.

So long as light holds and there's food, someone will be here eating it.

 

Latecomers to the party likely won't make it much past tomorrow.

Today I spotted the first Dark-eyed Junco of the season, brought down from Superior way by persistent northerly winds.

On the prairie at least, everyone knows exactly what time it is.