WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PUNKIN

I can't thank my high school English teacher enough for asking me to memorize James Whitcomb Riley's autumn poem that began with the line above. I can still recite most of it by heart, although I learned a different version from the one available here:

http://www.bartelby.net/104/10.html

This is a great time of year, with the air so often crisp and cool and leaves on the trees turning all kinds of beautiful colors. Thank goodness, we have that experience to some extent here in northern California, too.

I've managed to document it with my trusty camera a time or two lately. Here's a shot I took the other day, just around the corner from our house. It was good enough to win Picture of the Day on DigicamPlus.com:

LAKE SONOMA

The other day Dickie and I decided to vary our routine (a morning walk in the neighborhood) and we drove up the Dry Creek Valley north of Windsor and Healdsburg to the Ferrari-Carano Winery and then on up to a little roadside park that overlooks Lake Sonoma. It was there that I took this photo of a flowerbed that was flourishing there:















Dickie got the best shot of the lake. She pretends to be a complete novice, but she's actually quite good with a camera. Here she was using my Olympus C-750:
















Don't know about you, but Dickie and I are getting our fill of major league baseball right now, especially with the St. Louis Cardinals doing quite well in the playoffs. That's why I have to quit now. It's about time for the ballgame!