The Times They Are A Changin

Today, a wonderful thing happened. The time changed! I love it when the time changes in fall. Today, I didn't have trouble waking up because the sun was waking up too (and I had an extra hour of sleep). Today, the sunset time is an hour earlier than it was yesterday. Today the park was open for 91/2 hours and yesterday it was open for 101/2 hours. That means I get an extra hour to relax at the end of the day when I likely won't have any park related calls after I have gone home for the day. The first day of November was noticeable in other ways too. The warm, comfortable weather from yesterday was replaced by cool, breezy weather. If I was outside working, I was just warm enough; but if I stood still, it was too cold to be without a jacket. The leaves were falling more than I have seem them yet this year and divers didn't come early like they usually do. The 3 dive groups that I saw today all came in thought the late morning and afternoon, after the sun had a chance to warm the air up a little.
I started the day by doing something that I haven't done since I broke my arm. I used the backpack leaf blower to clear the walkway to the spring and the parking lot. It is easily my favorite park maintenance activity with mowing a close second. I still had to use my left hand to start and control the blower, but with my splint, I can get the back pack on better than I could with the cast. It was nice to be leaf blowing again, and it was too cold for frogs to be out so the job went quickly. I saw one cool jumping spider but was not quick enough with my camera.

At the top of the walkway, in the picnic area, a fern caught my eye. It was growing out of the center of a tree that forked off into multiple main trunks. I remember seeing only two or three fronds of this fern when I started at Troy 3 years ago. It is really full and beautiful now. Under the leaves, the orange spots are called sori (pronounced sore-eye). The sori produce spores which spread so that the fern can reproduce.


After leaf blowing, opening the cabin, and adding honor envelopes to the entrance station, I started on paperwork. Because today was the first day of the month, I had a bit of paperwork to do. I had to do the end of the week reports and the monthly paperwork. I got a big head start for tomorrow when everything has to be done and sent to the appropriate people. I have just a few more reports to finalize and I need to complete my time sheet tomorrow. When I had my fill of office work, I headed over to the cabin. I set up the new project for November. We are making turkeys out of pine cones! We have a great variety of sizes and shapes of pine cones around the park. I do this craft every November and I love seeing all the very different turkeys that walk away.


I stayed pretty busy today and there were a few more visitors than yesterday, but not many. When my evening relief arrived, I left to enjoy my peaceful evening.