Leaves Gone

Most of the leaves are on the ground now. I'm not a big fan of winter, but it's going to make tree measuring quite a bit easier, at least in the forest. This is a picture of the first tree I tried to measure back in the spring, a medium sized tulip poplar growing in the neighborhood woods. I had difficulty measuring it in the spring because I could not find a clear vantage point. Turns out, I measured it to be about nine feet taller than it probably really is. Now that the leaves are gone, I found a nice clear vantage point of the entire tree through the forest.

Ice is already forming on the creek in spots. Depending how the winter goes, the ice will come and go as the temperature fluctuates through the winter.