Signs of Fall

The trees have finally started to turn -- it's a late autumn this year.

I think I take this photo every year. There's still a lot of green, but the foliage has thinned to let in a luminous glow.

Lon & Dakota as we come up to "Three Rivers Campground". (Haven't camped there for years. There's a small tree growing in the middle of the campfire ring!)

Early yesterday afternoon the moon was setting behind the mountain. You can see that some of the trees have their fall color.

A less welcome sign of fall are the Japanese multi-colored lady beetles (or lady bugs if you want to be entomologically incorrect). It's a warm day after a week or so of night-time freezing, and they are swarming looking for a place to spend the winter. They squeeze through ridiculously small cracks, but die within hours indoors. From now through April we'll be sweeping and vacuuming them up daily.

A closer look at the lady beetles. I didn't want to get close enough for a good photo, so this is just an enlargement from the previous photo. These are nasty: they are aggressive, bite, and when they die they stink. This is a real invasive alien species!