It was mid-morning and I had already walked to and from, then around Council Point Park where I fed my furry and feathered friends. While walking home, I ended up carrying my jacket as the temps had warmed up considerably since the frosty-feeling morning. I planned to drop off my “treat bag” then shed a layer or two and set out again, camera in hand, because this glorious and sunny day was perfect to glean photos for my “Walktober” post.
About 20 minutes later, having shed the sweatsuit and jacket, I donned a plaid flannel shirt, a beige sherpa vest and …
… a pair of blue jeans. Then I laced up my red kicks and stepped out.
The wind was refreshing and, after my sunhat threatened to go airborne once or twice, I finally just jammed it into my jeans pocket. I felt the wind rustling my straw, er … hair as I strolled along and I knew I was grinning bigtime as I said to no one in particular “this is my kind of Fall day!”
Yikes! Mid-October in Michigan and the leaves were still green!
I don’t recall a September and early October so warm and rain-free. While that weather was great for walking, helping to bulk up my steps/miles, here in Southeast Michigan, our usually colorful leaves were mostly still stuck at green. Even at the Park, those Maples that begin showing tinges of red or yellow, were totally devoid of color.
Because I enjoy the harvest décor around the ‘hood, I decided my “Walktober” post would be a stroll to my favorite spots where the homeowners routinely outdo themselves with large pots of mums, cornstalks with Indian corn and, especially some scarecrows, their silly grins guaranteed to make ME grin.
I’ve always had an affinity for these harvest-time scarecrows and I’ve posted plenty of times about them. Once I had some fun with a tale about how the scarecrows gathered and broke bread at Thanksgiving dinner.
I was disappointed to learn that the Taylor Conservatory & Botanical Gardens would not be having their annual Scarecrow Stroll. People buy a wooden form (head and shoulders), then decorate their scarecrow to display in the Gardens. Well, no problem – I would have my own Scarecrow Stroll – so there!
There was harvest decor a’plenty here!
This house on Emmons Boulevard is my favorite for harvest décor and I’ve spotlighted it many times in this blog. They go to great lengths to tastefully decorate for each holiday and their gardens are always on the City’s annual garden tour as well.
They’ve added a few new items for 2024, but kept this long-time scarecrow with his message: “Sing the Song of Harvest Time” …
… and, then there are the “Harvest Thyme” wagon, gourds and mums in the front of the home.
The metal bin with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote “The earth laughs in flowers” was also out front, along with that “Yikes!” scarecrow.
At this home on Pagel Avenue, a few scarecrows can always be scared up …
And I noticed this beautiful Maple, always the first tree to turn and drop its leaves, had just a smidge of red and yellow …
A mischievous squirrel had dismantled a corn husk and Indian corn display and was eating the corn in the street. It looked up at me defiantly with zero remorse.
I would be remiss if I didn’t include a little “Winchester Whimsy” as well, so I strolled down Emmons and over one block. At this house where I often stop to take seasonal pics, the homeowner was covering Harvest time, Halloween and Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
While most people start their harvest displays in early September, I noticed a trend of less real pumpkins and more realistic-looking fake pumpkins.
Yep, you’d have to be out of your gourd to put out real gourds when temps climbed to nearly 90F several times, as you’d have mush. These real gourds looked pretty fresh though.
Mum’s the word everywhere I looked.
Beautiful jewel-toned chrysanthemums were everywhere, mostly in pots, but some in-ground as well. These were especially pretty in a pot at the church entrance …
… but there were so many mums that I came home with my camera card brimming with them, then had to winnow down my favorites for this post.
The lovely Lantana rivaled those mums in my opinion.
A bee was busy, nestled in the blooms.
The mid-day sun began beating down on my head, so I pulled my sunhat from my jeans pocket. It was a bit wrinkled, but I plunked it on my head anyway. My tootsies told me it was time to go home, having walked five miles altogether. Note to self: “next time just wear your walking shoes for comfortable feet!”
I grabbed a cup of coffee and a snack, kicked off those darn pointy boots, then fired up the computer to tell y’all about my “Walktober”.
A few things to note:
It appears we have finally switched seasons as it feels and looks like Fall here in Southeast Michigan. I will be going to a few parks in the next few weeks to get some foliage photos.
Terri’s Monthly Color Challenge for October is Black and/or Black and White – I will have a fun black and white photo for this week’s Wordless Wednesday.
All the photos are my own, except the last one (of course), which is a WordPress AI-generated photo. 🙂
Linda Schaub
WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY 
I sure enjoyed walking along with you seeing the fall decorations. Great scarecrows, and such big bunches of flowers! Had to laugh at the corn eating squirrel 🙂
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Thank you ghostmmnc – I love this time of year and we have had a gorgeous warm Fall weekend – unusually high temps (70s) for SE Michigan. Finally, we have Fall colors, so I will be able to do another post or two on my favorite parks with more colorful foliage. The squirrels are bad for eating the harvest decorations – they jump up into the cornstalks, tear down the Indian corn and nibble on the pumpkins!
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It’s cooler but still warmer than average here. We really need rain! Lovely fall pictures.
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We only have rain one day this week, Wednesday, with fog too, so I can stay on track with walking and I hope to get to other venues with colorful leave later in the week. Thank you – I love the harvest décor and mums.
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Lucky you. We need the rain.
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We do too, though we had torrential rain for about 12 hours last weekend, so that helped.
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Gorgeous photos!
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Thank you Anne! Glad you liked them. I really like that one house on Emmons. They put a lot of effort into their décor, no matter the season.
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oh I love your A-I generated scarecrow incarnation, Linda! Despite the green and warm, autumn harvest fun is definitely apparent in your pics! Your outfit looks cute too!
Once I pinpointed southeast Michigan I realized Spokane is much farther to the north than where you live. Comparatively, your latitude is about the same as the California-Oregon border. But we had a high of 75F today, a record high! Rain tonight and lows in the upper 20s coming this week. Tomorrow I plant all my bulb plants. We winterized the property today and I have my snowshoes at the ready! 🤣
I’ll look forward to your WW black color challenge!
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Thanks Terri! I had a lot of fun with this post!
I went for the walk and saw that scarecrow with the beige sherpa vest and plaid flannel shirt and took her photo, then I decided it would be fun, since I had a beige sherpa vest and plaid flannel shirt to make her into me. Then I tried about five different WP AI-generated images feeding the criteria of how I dressed plus sitting at a computer … this was my favorite image. 🙂
Interesting for our latitude being similar to the California-Oregon border … if we have much warmer weather in our cold seasons, we will be like California. We are forecast to have another warm Winter, but not as warm as last Winter but La Niña will bring us lots of precip. Good luck with the bulbs – I have never planted bulbs before. Snowshoes!
I think you will smile at my WW black-and-white offering.
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Wonderful fall decoration photos, Linda, and a really fun photo at the end. I’m looking forward to the changing of the leaves.
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Thank you Rebecca. I had a little fun matching up an AI scarecrow to the real scarecrow and my outfit. 🙂 Some homes in the neighborhood have beautiful harvest decorations – it was an enjoyable stroll. Our leaves got colorful in a hurry after we dipped down to 33 – we were supposed to have a hard freeze, but it didn’t happen, so I will be getting out this week for a few more strolls to look at the leaves – my favorite season!
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Not much color here yet. Sometimes we don’t get it until November.
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I think our leaves will be history by then. We are getting some pretty colors now – hopefully we don’t get any gusty breezes anytime soon.
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Such a scary post Linda! I love the red shoes, my favorite color!
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Thank you Diane! I have always liked scarecrows – maybe next year I can put some up in the front yard. I bought one at Meijer about five years ago – a tall girl scarecrow on a pole, but I put the stake in, jiggled it too much and she fell apart!
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They make them so cheap now Linda. I had one too and had to tie it to the porch railing because when I went to pound it into the ground it started to fall apart too. The flowers you took pictures of were one of the reasons I love fall so much, beautiful pictures Linda!
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I love those mums, especially the huge pots of them. I had them once, bought a lot of small ones at a farm market, we had a torrential rain a day later and washed the dirt away before they “took” … they eventually were okay, after more dirt, but I finally pulled them out as they got to leggy looking despite pinching them back. That scarecrow literally fell apart. Some of these homeowners have had the same scarecrows year after year … one has stand-up scarecrows, they put next to a hay bale. Their porch display is under an awning, so it protects them, but they are very cute.
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You just don’t know that they repaired them every year. 🤣
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That’s probably what they did Diane – some of those Harvest-time set-ups have been around for many years!
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I love when people make the effort to decorate their yards for others to enjoy! Great fall pictures… and I love your red shoes!
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I do too Janis – I have never decorated for harvest and after seeing everyone’s decorations, I have to do it next year – some people use the fake mums, which looked very realistic and you don’t worry if the frost zaps them or you get a torrential rain. Finally we have some colorful leaves, so I’ll be going out on a few long walks in the woodsy areas now. Glad you liked my red shoes. I have been decluttering and found them, though they weren’t as comfortable as the last time I wore them, probably because my walking shoes are so wide.
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I think that’s just a fact of life… the cuter the shoes, the more uncomfortable they are. 🙂
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I agree with that Janis – when I finished walking in them I wondered how I wore high-heeled pumps for so many years.
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The great photography. Beautiful your photos. Wonderful walkotber & fall decorations.Beautiful flowers & bees on bussy.
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Thank you Raj. I am glad you enjoyed this post. It really was a beautiful Fall day for a walk with the camera.
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Welcome, Linda! Iam so glad, really was a fall day is nice captured the nature beauty.
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It looks like people in Michigan go all-out with their fall decorations, unlike here where it’s mostly just Halloween stuff. Fun to see, and the beautiful flowers are a bonus. Most of our trees are still green too, although there’s more colour now than last week. We had 73F today and it will be even warmer tomorrow! Although I love wearing summer clothes in the middle of October, I know it’s bad for the planet. Love your snazzy red boots! Too bad they’re not so comfortable. Congrats for getting 5 miles in, regardless! Looks like AI came up with the perfect scarecrow image for your post. 😀
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We’re finally getting some color in the leaves and the weather folks say we are a full two weeks behind. I thought it was later than that to be honest. I will try to get out to a couple of bigger parks before a big wind whooshes them down. We had 80F today – one more degree would have broken a record and 79F tomorrow. That is just crazy. I agree with you about our planet – I wish it had waited until I was no longer on it to do this craziness. I am glad I walked the majority of my miles that day in the wide walking shoes. I had found these red boots, which I had forgotten about, in a cupboard this Summer. They are probably 20 years old. When I bought them I had treated them with waterproofing spray, but never wore them in the rain. When I’m home I wear my comfy moccasins, when outside my heavy walking shoes which is probably not a good idea. I had a lot of fun putting together this post Debbie – I saw the scarecrow and knew I had clothes like she was wearing, so I made her “me”, then played with images to get the WP AI image too. 🙂
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Love seeing all your fall finds on the hiking trails. 🙂 wonderful time of year. 🙂
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It truly is my favorite season Sandra – so much to see and now our leaves are finally starting to color up, so another excursion or two will happen this week (hopefully).
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What a great Walktober! You found plenty of fun stuff and color, and I especially loved the red shoes! Your own version of ruby slippers! I, too, was out yesterday (Sunday) getting my Walktober picture. I haven’t sorted through them yet though.
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Dawn, I hear it’s going to be a pretty Fall week so perfect for walking and picture-taking. I will try to go to a few more parks to enjoy the ambiance. So many photos, so little time!
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It is nice to see the seasonal decorations.
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I think so too JP – I like the harvest decorations more than the scary Halloween stuff these days!
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We’ve seen plenty of those fake pumpkins around here too, and I guess it makes sense when the temps soar. Our trees are also misbehaving, as most don’t appear anywhere close to dropping their leaves. A year ago at this time I’d be mulching all over the place. Plenty of pine cones and branches to pick up in the meantime.
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I saw some trees at the Park are just turning the deeper shades now Dave. Maples mostly, so I’ll get out later in the week to photograph them. At least we won’t have a warm Winter this year (they say – whew, no massive bug infestations to deal with in 2025 which will be great). At 80 degrees today, those pumpkins would be melting bigtime.
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The same can’t be said of the South. If La Nina does her typical thing, you’ll be colder than average while we’ll be warmer. It’ll be interesting to see the consequences on both of our regions in the Spring.
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Yes it will. I know I have wished several times we had had a more normal Winter for 2023-2024. It would have meant less bugs – ticks especially, but the mosquitoes carrying viruses as well. Plus we had a bout of freezing rain overnight that coated one of the few snowfalls we had making it treacherous for two weeks to even step outside the house. The ice melt products work pretty well, but not always.
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I’ve not seen one scarecrow around here. I seem to live among neighbors who like ghosts and skeletons and mums every which way. But the harvest theme hasn’t taken root around here. We do scary, not home-y.
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I’m surprised there are no harvest decorations for you Ally, but we do have our fair share of Halloween spirit as well. I believe the stat is that people are spending as much on Halloween decorations as Christmas decorations now – wow!
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I believe it just by looking around this neighborhood. Halloween, then Christmas, then Easter. Used to be Fourth of July was a big deal, but not anymore.
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I see a lot of inflatables (which I don’t really care for) but I also see the 12-foot tall skeletons and animatronic figures. It used to be you put out a jack-o-lantern with a candle in it on Halloween night and called it done.
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I love the RWE quote. I’m not sure I ever heard it before.
Walktober has been great for you, at least weather-wise. I hope you are getting your steps in and banking them against the sad, gray days coming in November and December.
You did a great job capturing the fall colors. Our sugar maple is still almost all green – just a few red spots here and there. We are now in CO visiting our grandson, and it snowed last night!
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I like that quote too Laurie – it’s so true, whether Summer’s beautiful blooms or these gorgeous mums.
I am walking my socks off in this great weather. I think we had only one rainy day so far in October, so yes, I’m bulking up my miles to make my year-end goal … I am ahead a bit now, even with the later start time until we change the clocks.
The sugar maples are so beautiful – the neighborhood trees are finally starting to turn, especially the maples.
How nice you’re in Colorado for a visit with Atti – but snow already – wow!
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I enjoyed your puns and pictures, Linda! It’s nice to see how people decorate for the seasons – don’t get that in my neighborhood.
I do take exception to the “devoid of color” remark, though. I do consider green to be a color!😉
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Thank you Eilene – people really decorate to the hilt here for harvest time. I would rather see harvest time décor than the Halloween décor. Ha ha – you certainly make a good point that “devoid” was maybe a poor choice of words since green IS a color. What I meant is by mid-October here in SE Michigan we should have had colorful foliage – our normal peak time would be this week and soon not a green leaf would be around. I am going to get to a few big parks this week to catch the glory before those leaves fall to the ground.
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It seems a lot of our leaves went straight to brown this year. But I’m seeing some lively reds in the horticultural trees.
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I’m glad you have some color. For me “the most wonderful time of the year” is not at the holidays, but now.
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Fall is my favorite season, too.
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It sounds like the perfect fall day!!! Your red shoes are pretty snazzy. Loved all the whimsical scarecrows and the pots full of mums! Those squirrels get into so much trouble this time of year. Last year one kept burying nuts in my pot of mums, making a mess of it. The AI-generated photo is priceless! I was trying to figure out if that was you in costume and how you managed to take a picture of yourself. I finally read on and had a good laugh at my gullibility.
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It was a beautiful day Barbara and I could have taken pictures on a walk many more days after that – but you never can predict the weather so I went that day. I love all the harvest décor and mums – so beautiful. Now our trees are about at peak – we are two weeks behind schedule, so I will head out to get some more photos, but won’t use them as an October walk. I am glad you liked what I did in this post … I had a lot of fun here because first I saw that scarecrow girl in the jeans, plaid flannel shirt and beige sherpa vest the day of my walk. I decided while walking home it would be fun to recreate her look for me, so I took pics of my clothes. If I could have done a selfie, it would have worked better – I’ve never done that. The red shoes I found in the bottom of one of my closets. I have not worn them in a long time and bought them as I had a lot of red clothes for Fall, so I wore them at work sometimes. Then I got the idea of the AI-generated photo of the scarecrow. I “fed” the criteria I wanted and got several photos, including one scarecrow with a laptop in its lap, with the right clothes combo, but it was in a corn field. So this was perfect, a little short on the hair and long on the nose, but the clothes were a good match – so much fun! 🙂
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Fall is my favourite season, I love the weather, the colours, everything. I laughed at your defiant squirrel eating someone’s decorations! We are having fantastic weather here too and we still have a lot of green trees also, it’s about a third green leaves, a third no leaves and the rest have colour.
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October is my favorite month and it didn’t disappoint with the warm temps and lack of rain, though we had some rain today, but not enough to help. Those squirrels think they own everything and a few years back I did a post where I walked by someone’s house in the neighborhood where they had a nice display of huge hay bales with pumpkins and gourds on them and some corn stalks with Indian corn strapped to a few scarecrows. So, it really looked nice, except a squirrel was up into the Indian corn, tugged on it and the squirrel, scarecrows, corn stalks all came tumbling down and the squirrel happily ran off with its corn prize.
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haha sorry but I laughed when you said the Squirrels think they own everything lol. They sure do and they have such attitudes ! I feel bad for the people decorating their house and then a squirrel destroys it.
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They are little buggers for sure. I feel sorry for those people too – they can buy fake pumpkins, but I don’t think they can buy fake Indian corn and corn stalks. Today on my walk in the ‘hood, I saw people had already put out their carved pumpkins and the squirrels had gotten hold of them and … well, let’s just say the eyes, nose and mouth were merged into one big hole. 🙂
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What a fun fall walk! You checked everything off the autumnal list! I bought a couple mums this year and kept them alive longer than I usually do- I always forget to water my flowers, but the rain stretch we had probably also helped…. I guess I can’t take full credit for their longevity 😆
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Yes, it was a perfect day Mackenzie, but I have to say that all but one or two days since Fall began have been perfect weather days here. That’s good as I still have a way to go to meet my 1,257-miles walked in 2024 goal. I once bought a slew of mums at a farm market. Small ones, I think three for $5.00 – such a deal, but this was awhile ago. Brought them home, planted them and two days later we had torrential rain, the new dirt I planted them in washed away and they got root rot. I thought mums were supposed to be hardy. I can’t keep a poinsettia to save my life – they never make it to Christmas. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by.
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I guarantee the same thing would happen to me! That is a great deal for mums though at least!! I hope you enjoy those final miles. I’m outside in a short sleeve as I type this- soaking up every nice day!
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I don’t always have a green thumb when Mother Nature interferes! This weather has been gorgeous but we had 35 – 40 mph winds today. Hang onto your hats and your little trick-or-treaters! At least the weather is mild for costumes. I can remember going out in a Winter coat.
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All great photos Linda including the last one! I hope you got some good fall color photos because the leaves are falling quickly now. Our maples are almost bare.
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Thank you Ruth – it was a beautiful day to take that walk. I’ve had a good month in October for walking and luckily I got to Lake Erie Metropark and Elizabeth Park this past Thursday to get some leaf color photos, because after today’s high winds it’s likely the leaves will be scattered here, there and everywhere. I had some fun with this post – first I saw the scarecrow with clothes that I knew I had a similar outfit at home, so I let her become me. Then I tried out WP’s AI pictures and came up with a fun photo of me again. 🙂
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Such a lovely post Linda ❤️. Such beautiful descriptions of the wonderful seasonal sights
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Thank you Zena – I am glad you enjoyed it. Decorating for harvest time is a big thing here and I love looking how everyone decorates. This year since we’ve had such mild weather, the mums are looking especially lovely!
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Linda, this was a colorful and festive post! The scarecrow faces are cute and now I want to get a couple on my porch. Mums looks beautiful and full in their pots.
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Thank you Esther – I am glad you liked the ‘hood scarecrows. People have a lot of fun with them. I would like to get a couple too – my porch is small, but to put out front. Michael’s (where I know you shop sometimes) had stand-up scarecrows in the past, so rather than stake them, you just stand them up – very cute with hay bales and pumpkins or gourds. Those mums are gorgeous – the yellow ones are in a huge container in front of a local church.
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