Just a handful of days after Halloween and it seems nearly all vestiges of that holiday are gone. The skeletons have returned to their respective closets and the inflatable freaky and frightful characters have been replaced with cumbersome-looking, gigantic turkeys with crusty yellow feet and red wattles that wiggle in the wind.  A few grinning jack-o-lanterns that weren’t pitched in yesterday’s trash are still sitting out, looking a little worse for the wear from the squirrels who have been busy chomping on their gory-looking faces.

At least some of the beautiful harvest décor, like the jewel-toned mums, scarecrows and cornhusks, get to linger a little longer … at least ‘til Thanksgiving weekend when the Christmas decorations get dragged out and put up. Thanksgiving is only three weeks away.  It’s hard to think of that gateway to the holiday season with such mild temps as we are enjoying this week.

Today’s destination was to the railroad tracks and back – roundtrip about four miles. I kept a leisurely pace to enjoy the serenity of the morning under a brilliant sky.  The air smelled of musty leaves and Fall fertilizer and though it was perfectly calm outside, leaves were drifting through the air from trees high above, like time-lapse images found in the glossy pages of “National Geographic”.

I lingered on the footbridge that separates Lincoln Park and Wyandotte. With the time change, the sun is stronger and the angle of its rays onto the Creek made the scene look golden … the trees are still full of leaves, all of them bright yellow, and the reflection on the water was gorgeous.  A few ducks paddled around silently, every so often grouping in a little cove, then drifting out again to nibble at the reeds along the water’s edge.  It was so peaceful that I stood there for the longest time just woolgathering and storing the image in my mind’s eye to drag out once the cold and blustery Winter days arrive.

While I was pondering life from the footbridge, suddenly a lot of honking preceded the arrival of a flock of geese flying in formation. I counted at least two dozen of them hootin’ and hollerin’ as only Canada Geese do, as they made their journey South. Why bother migrating at all – we’re set to have a mild Winter and our official high temp today was 76°, smashing the 1987 record of 75° … save yourself the aggravation.

Maybe someone should whisper in their ears and they can head back soon.

It was a beautiful day to be outside – the birds were singing from the near-bare trees and the squirrels were chasing one another instead of gathering nuts for Winter. It seems this Indian Summer finds us all with Spring fever.