The first freezes of the season were on Nov. 1 and 2. Trees are shedding their leaves, and snakes are shedding skin.
On four outings, I stumbled across five skins from small snakes, Dekay’s brownsnake, Storeria dekayi.
They’re shedding before brumation. Snakes are cold-blooded so they don’t really hibernate. Their metabolism slows down when temperatures fall below about 60 degrees. When it’s really cold they enter a torpor. A hibernating bear sleeps through the winter, but a snake will come out on a warm day in winter.
Neither freeze was hard, just a couple of hours around dawn.
The canopy of the forest has thinned. You can see a bit further through the woods.
The flowers that were blooming on Halloween are still holding on: asters and mistflowers, mostly. And, oddly, that Mirabilis jalapa, marvel-of-Peru, that I ran across in a vacant lot is still gorgeous. I’ve also been admiring a hardy stand of sunflowers along Rockbridge Road.
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