James Alger

Ah! The warm days of October. I've experienced them before up here in the north. They stretch that good summer warmth well into the autumn. There is something wonderful about them, with a special noted pleasure. A robin sings about them off to my right, as I settle in under the old elm by the Red River.

Five gray squirrels greet me as I settle in. A small red squirrel promptly roosts out of the top of a small oak tree nearby, chasing Mr. Gray Squirrel around and around the trunk of the young tree until Mr. Gray takes a giant leap to the ground, while Mr. Red halts and chatters after him, as if to say, “this is my tree!”

An autumn rainy day meets me and I settle in the woods today. The earth drinks in the moisture, because we are suffering from a few wildfires even west of the Red River.

Well, I had a grand welcoming committee as I settled in the woods today — 23 wild turkeys and a family of three white-tailed deer. It is an overcast day with light sprinkles of rain now and then, but that doesn't seem to bother these hardy woodland folks.

Four tom turkeys amble by me on my left soon after I arrive. And now six more toms arrive to join them and gazed at me a bit before moving on. Why just toms? Where are the hens?

A red squirrel zips up into the foliage of a cedar tree a dozen feet in front of me upon my arrival today. Is it fixing up a nest for winter? Or finding seeds that it likes?

Today you would find me settling down under the twin hackberry trees. I remark upon this not because it is unusual, but because I had never even

First snow of the season. Rabbit tracks all over the place means that the rabbits were here in the snowless season at night, when it was harder for predators to spot them.

Everyone is out today. It's sunshine in December. An American crow is the first to greet me. Almost immediately, two of his buddies join him.

My daughter, Julie, and her partner, Mark, helped me get settled at home in the woods today. They will return later and help me out of the woods.