Autumn in the Piedmont

 The Yellow River was green Sunday. It looked like a stream in Central Texas.

We’ve had no rain since the hurricane sideswiped us in late September. The mudline on the vegetation in the river bottom is still there. The floodwaters, of course, are long gone. The stream is shallow, clear and green.

We are still finding new trails. Another walker said he’d seen a herd of 10 deer on a hill, so we left the riverbank and went into the uplands. The little herd had broken up, but we saw two doe.

I’ve mentioned a stand of ironweeds, dogfennel and beggar ticks that is a magnet for bees, butterflies and wasps. The ironweeds have stopped blooming. The beggar ticks were still flowering. The dogfennel plants were bowing, heads heavy with seed and dew.

The seasons are changing in the Piedmont. Around the house, we’ve put in our first load of firewood. I’ve started wearing sweatshirts on the morning dog walk.

The other morning, I fed Lucas, the old cat, and opened the door to let him out on the porch. He paused at the sill, looked at me as if I’d lost my mind, and scampered upstairs toward the cot in my study. The migratory birds are moving south. The migratory cat is moving toward a warm bed.