Hanging on to autumn

In mid-October I stopped in Target to pick up something.  There, prominately displayed by the aisle, were Christmas dishes.  They caught my eye and I thought how pretty a holiday table would look with them.  Then, I remembered it was October.  Christmas dishes in a store in October?

Halloween morning the Sunday newspaper arrived full of ads.  Toy ads.  The kind of toy ads that usually are in the Thanksgiving morning paper.  Again, I wondered, wasn't it a bit too soon to be thinking about Christmas?  

Monday morning, November 1, on the way to work I was doing my usual searching on the car radio trying to find a song I like.  Unfortunately, I pushed the button for our local radio station that plays Christmas music 24/7 in November and December.  

I'm really not in the mood to think about Christmas yet.  We have had such a beautiful fall in Kansas City and see no reason to rush from one season to the next.  Is Thanksgiving just a bump in the road from Halloween to Christmas?  Not for me!  I hanging on to autumn for a while longer.  If you feel the same, you might enjoy these photos of fall color:

Carpet of ginkgo leaves

Gold Pillar Barberry in the fall

Heptacodium (Seven Son Flower)

Shantung Maple

October Glory Maple

Pansy

Aronia (Chokeberry)

Garden Mum

A rugged landscape

Our journey home from Colby, Kansas a few weeks ago took many detours.  It was the road sign on I70 that caught my husband's eye.  Next thing you know we are headed down a gravel road, through a farmer's field, and across a cattle gate.  The rutted road took us to the top of a rock formation overlooking Castle Rock.  

Though crops grow to the south of this chalk formation, this view to the north and east shows only a few junipers dotting the landscape and grasses. 



Fortunately, we were in a Jeep and it could handle the road that winds around the rock formations.

We stopped several times to get out for a closer look and hiked in the area.


I was on the lookout for rattlesnakes and was just certain this was a great place for them to call home.  Fortunately, we didn't see any.  

We did see small plants growing in the cracks of the rock formations along with yuccas and grasses in the open areas.  Castle Rock is a rugged landscape with a rugged beauty.