Daily Oak - October report

Number of days missed: 3

Number of days with more than one visit: 1

Number of visits with more than the two standard perspectives taken: 8

Total number of pictures taken: 74

Number of guest trees: 3, for the days missed, and one neighbor

Perhaps the most surprising thing about this month was, that although I had seen the first yellow leaves on September 21 already, surprisingly little happened with regard to turning of the color of leaves throughout most of this month. Whereas a neighboring oak already seemed to be a lot more yellow on October 17, my oak remained pretty much the same until just a few days ago. 

A neighboring oak on October 17,
much lighter in leaves colour already

Sometime during the month I had read a little note in the paper stating that a forester had explained why there was surprisingly little turning of foliage this fall – because of the abundant rain falls during the summer the growth period of the leaves continued for much longer than it does during more arid years, resulting in a much shortened or less noticeable period of changing coloring. Not even the first nightly frosts on around the 10^th of the month speeded things up.

What was clearly noticeable, though, was the fact that it is getting dark much earlier by now. On October 19 I barely caught the last glimpse of light after I had been busy all day pressing apples and quince and making marmelade out of the juice when I realized it was already getting dark and I had not yet been to see the tree!

Perspective a, October 3, 6:35 p.m.

Perspective a, October 6, 6:06 p.m.

Perspective a, October 19, 6:18 p.m.

On the 29^th we had such thick fog that it almost concealed the tree when looked at from the usual perspectives.

Perspective b, October 29, 9:36 a.m.

Of course, this past weekend we had the changing of the clocks, which sets nightfall even one hour earlier. It does add to the decisive feeling that this project is nearing its completion, after all there are only two months left now.