Cats Present: Creek and Leaf Scenes Change Fast While Fall Stalls; with Music!

October Greetings from Franklin

Franklin: Call me Franklinstein for today and tomorrow, it’s Halloween.

Within our slow fall season scenes at the creek change rapidly. As they say about our area, “If you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes, it will change.” These creek pictures are mostly from October 16th and 20th and before. Then there was a rainy night. On a trek to the creek two days after, we found that all of the low rocky areas full of leaves in these pictures were underwater and it’s likely most of the leaves were washed away. I took pics of a few leaves left in the water (still in the camera). A few days later, we had freakin’ Zeta come through, not too rough where we are, but enough to sweep most of the downed leaves away. Now another boatload of leaves has to change and drop before we’ll see a creek color feast again.

Waiting for rain

Damp path of leaves

Party of leaves

We’ll be parting with these

I see at least two Tulip Tree leaves.

Distant destination

Rocky landings

We changed something, too. The long fallen branch across the top of the photo has now been removed by the hubs.

Bigger than it looks

There’s a double tree on the opposite bank that casts a long shadow.

Tranquility

Float, reflect, wait for rain

Greetings from trees

I like that the phone camera shows the reflections of pines.

On the way

More color is up there, I think the creek will get back what it just “lost”.

Forest quilting

Sweetgum

That Sweetgum leaf is early. The trees are just starting to turn. Each tree here will have mainly yellow leaves, and strangely, a few red ones.

I like this song by Michael Smith, “Panther in Michigan”, at this time of year because it mentions Halloween, and panthers. Panther is used in the US South to refer to mountain lions, and possibly in Michigan too.

There is a possible panther chase in my book Catwoods. I can’t say for sure that there was one here, I present the events and readers can draw their own conclusions. Anyhoo if you would like, get the book by clicking on the Amazon link to the upper right, or, to go direct to Borgo Publishing, check out the “Order the Catwoods book Online” page above.

Lagniappe:

Our friend’s cat, Shelley

Shelley: I don’t need a Halloween costume, I am wearing October.

Franklinstein: You must be Mary Shelley, your tail looks like it belongs to three different cats.

In memory of Clara Granata, environmental advocate and friend.

About Leah

I'm Leah T. Alford, a writer fascinated by the natural world and animals, especially cats.
This entry was posted in black cats, Cats, Creeks, Nature and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

57 Responses to Cats Present: Creek and Leaf Scenes Change Fast While Fall Stalls; with Music!

  1. You have a way with photography and color. Love it.

  2. Candace says:

    Franklin and Shelley are so cute. Autumn is so pretty but we don’t have actual autumn in this part of AZ. Lovely photos of yours.

  3. inese says:

    What a beautiful post in memory of your friend. Love the reflections, and of course the cats.

  4. tanssityttö says:

    So beautifull photos!!!

  5. chattykerry says:

    I like Franklinstein’s seasonal name! We have two vultures visiting regularly – Teddy calls them our black angels…

  6. Beautiful fall colors. I love that you are “wearing October”.

  7. Loved to tree-pawty with you, kitties, so beautiful, and the mewsic too😸Pawkisses for a Happy Wednesday🐾😽💞

  8. Carole Schulman says:

    Shelly, you ARE wearing October! Best description ever of a beautiful glowing Tortie. Having had a Tortie Mistress here with me, I have them in my heart forever.
    Katie Isabella

  9. Hey Leah, one day I will grab a copy of your insightful and captivating book. Your work sits right at the heart of bringing about socio-emotional and cross-cultural connections where as far I am concern, cat acts as flagship umbrella species across the hemisphere. Your tireless endeavor, despite chronic illness, in terms of Catwoods write ups and publications are full fledged testimony to that. Yes, you are very right about multiple common names of wild cats which in my opinion also carries lot of spiritual, aesthetic, social and cultural significance across tropic and neotropical belt. As you may know there are roughly 36 species of wild cats and most are facing global extinction crisis at disproportional manner. Taxonomic classification that characterize species in binomial naming has little or no conservation implications. I give you a quick example. Not too long ago, Snow Leopard was under genus called Uncia so it was Uncia uncia in the past and now taxonomists brought it under Panthera genus hence it is now called Panthera uncia. The underlying reason is not much of science but more of political hobnobbing and conservation-politics. Sadly, regardless of fancy buffet-over-a-meeting and wasteful conferences in conservation Ivory towers among taxonomists and some rich conservation biologists, Snow Leopard population continues to decline in an alarming rate! Same goes pretty much to wild tigers which carries five sub species simply because of ‘political show off’ and so that some ill-conceived conservationists and taxonomists can keep their fancy jobs at Switzerland or England!

    • Catwoods says:

      Wow, I knew they were endangered but I did not know the rest, I sure hope those populations, and all other endangered species, can recover.

  10. Excellent piece as always Leah! Thanks for sharing such a colorful images of natures display over the Fall / Winter. That song by Michael Smith is also pretty cool and I enjoyed listening it too. Yes, often Latinized name of species gets confused with common name. Here is some background information. The taxonomical Genus Panthera holds Tiger (Panthera tigris), Jaguar (Panthera onca), Lion (Panthera leo) and Leopard (Panthera pardus). Species like Mountain Lion falls into different genus called Puma hence latinized binomial name of this species is Puma concolor as far I remember. People still refer it as Panther or Black Panther, Puma, etc. hence cause confusion. The image of Fraklin and Shelly are super cool and I hope all of you had great Halloween! Happy belated Halloween! Saludos! Ashraf

    • Catwoods says:

      Thank you for the kind words and interesting discussion, Ashraf! I’m happy you liked the the post and the music. Sorting out the cats is fascinating and I think you are right, the Latin binomial of the species is indeed Puma concolor, and it isn’t actually related to the Genus panthera. I included a little research on the species in the chapter of my book about our own “panther chase” through the woods here. (The publisher right now isn’t shipping the book outside the US but I am working on a Kindle version, slowly, and hope to get it done in a month or less.) If I’m recalling correctly this species has hundreds of common names. While Mountain Lion or Puma is used in the western US, panther is still used in the southern US and possibly a few other places. I kind of like that we have a some different names for things and different language in our region (“local color”), although it can be confusing sometimes.

  11. Amarula is wearing Halloween too! Love the beautiful leaves!

  12. catscue says:

    Wow! those are beautiful photos, I love your woods!

  13. Such beauty in fallen leaves!

    I giggled at Franklinstein, good one!! And Shelly sure is as colorful as all your pretty fall leaves:)

  14. Correne says:

    Franklin is such a handsome kitty and Shelley’s coloring is so pretty. Wonderful photos of the leaves.

  15. Lavinia Ross says:

    Those are beautiful photos, Leah! I am listening to your music selection now.

    • Catwoods says:

      Thank you Lavinia, the kitties thank you too! I’m happy you like the photos! I’m glad you listened to the music, I didn’t think anyone had.

  16. Charlotte says:

    I love Sweet Gum leaves. Glad Zeta didn’t impact y’all much. It was pretty hairy here. I did get to experience the eye as it passed over – a sudden stop of wind, eerie quiet, pink sky. In all my tears living here and all the storms, I’d never been in the eye. Our leaves aren’t changing much. All the trees in my yard are evergreens – Magnolia, Palm, Japonica – so I don’t see any changes in my immediate area. I do miss that. Happy Halloween to you and Franklin! 🐱🕷🌕👻💀

    • Catwoods says:

      Yikes Charlotte, that must have been scary and creepy! We were fortunate, a lot of the state did lose power, we were just slightly outside of the rough zone. I do love the sweetgum, I even like the fruit though it’s bad if you step on it barefoot. I like the evergreen plants but would miss fall too. At this latitude it’s like the trees don’t know quite what to do, like they are saying, “we just had a tropical storm, it must be time to be green again.” Happy Halloween!

  17. pollymorse says:

    Oh, Franklinstein, you are funny. That Shelley is a cutie though, so I get that you were flirting with her. Hope you both have a Happy Halloween!!!

  18. Your photos are wonderful! And yes, Shelley is certainly wearing her autumn colours. 🙂

  19. Beautiful fall colors at the creek, Leah. This time of transition is so lovely, keep enjoying it as long as it lasts.
    Have a good weekend,
    Tanja

  20. John says:

    Such beautiful cats!! 🥰😻 Lovely colors too in your photos. 🥰

    • Catwoods says:

      The kitties and I thank you John! I’m happy you like the colors! I’ve been meaning to comment about how much I’m enjoying your recent pictures, I’ve just been crazy busy dodging a tropical storm and etc.

  21. Mew mew mew ‘Mary Shelley’…guud one Franklin!!
    Miss Leah yore fotoss are furabuluss….Autumm iss gorgeeus there.
    Wee had a nice Autumm butt then rain an sleet an wind an now most of THE treess are nekked! CATFISH!!!
    Wee bin offlien with a furry messed up Pee C. Iss sorta fixed fore now….so if wee go missin again…you will know why….
    ***purrss*** BellaDhamr an ❤ LadyMew

    • Catwoods says:

      Hi BellaDharma and LadyMew, we are happy you like the photos and the autumn pics … there will be more to come, our autumn moves slow. Fall is faster farther north but I think it is more intense. Yikes on rain, sleet, wind!
      Sorry to hear about the computer trouble, it’s always such a pain! Glad it’s fixed and hoping it stays that way.
      Purrs and Meows from all of us!

      • Mee-yow Miss Leah an Franklin our Pee C iss just patched up till wee can buy a mew-new Lappytop. So wee are here fore now. An sumtime next week LadyMew will go back to store an buy mee a Pee C…An wee hope to see more of yore eelitefull fotoss Miss Leah!! Autumm iss allwayss so purrty…..
        **sighss** BellaDharma

        • Catwoods says:

          Getting a new PC sounds good! I’m so tech-challenged that learning something new is hard for me but I need to make that change soon too, I am using an ancient machine . . . Hopefully you can hold up until you get your new one going! I do have more autumn pictures, and more autumn slowly unrolling, so if I hold up, there will be more lots more! Meows!

  22. Timothy Price says:

    Hi Franklin and Shelly! Happy kitty Halloween! Beautiful leaves.

  23. 15andmeowing says:

    Your photos are so beautiful. If I took photos today , they would be all white as we got almost 5 inches of snow- a bot too early. Have a Happy Halloween! Give the kitties lots of treats. XO

    • Catwoods says:

      Thank you Ellen, I’m happy you like the pictures! Wow, snow already. We have gotten chilly but nothing like a snow storm. Happy Halloween, and the kitties think your idea about treats is tops! XO

  24. Brian says:

    Hello sweet kitties! WOW, your fall was sure colorful, ours was a bit drab this year, nothing like those colors!

    • Catwoods says:

      The kitties sending greetings and meows, Brian. I have to admit that I push the color saturation slider in photoshop pretty hard. I try to make the pics more like what I saw but I can’t resist going even brighter.

      • Lavinia Ross says:

        Michael Smith is a new artist for me. I hadn’t heard of him before. Thank you!

        • Catwoods says:

          My pleasure, Lavinia! I first heard him in the 80s on NPR, it was this song. I was doing something else and it caught my attention from across the room. I don’t know much of his work but I have a friend who knows it well. He’s written a lot of songs from what I understand.

Comments are closed.