IronTy

It's over

Before we got our property we used to rent a cabin at Herrington Manor every fall about this time. Hiking trails are pretty flat and there is a small lake you might be able to canoe on if the boats are still around before they remove them for the winter. Only downside for me is that they're sort of boring walks in the woods without much biological interest. Swallow falls is a more interesting trail if your party is up for it. My parents are 72yo and they did it, theyre both in decent health but by no means athletic. Not sure how a 4yo would do...no experience with children! There is also a trail in that vicinity that used to have the largest red oak in Maryland before it died. A few years ago I found it and it was a rotting carcass but most of the trunk was still standing. I tried googling but wasn't having luck. I think the flyers at Herrington Manor said where it was. It was pretty big.

Swallow falls is great and would be doable I think for that age range. It's a relatively short hike and if memory serves me correct some of it is paved (i think). There are some very large old hemlocks and rhododendron too. I was on meadow mtn this past Friday and color was basically at peak, not sure now with the freezing/snow they had this morning.

First flakes of the season in Bittinger this morning! ETA there's even a little bit of frost on my deck here in Huntingtown!

Oh baby!!! Bring it on!!!

42F right now out in Bittinger with a freeze warning tonight. We put up several cellular game cameras around our property and apparently a flying squirrel lives in one of the oak trees that is in front of our shed. Every night we get pics of him running up and down the tree trunk with an acorn in his mouth. He's really cute. I've never actually seen a flying squirrel IRL before this. I know we have them on our property down here in huntingtown because I've heard them at night, usually in the fall. But I've never actually seen one before.

Man I love this time of year. Looks gorgeous, feels gorgeous, even smells gorgeous with the wet falling leaves.

I need to get to the mountain!

Somehow we still found a tick on Benson yesterday. I have no idea how since lows in the 30s and highs in the 40s. Bastards.

Nice pic, we woke up and my little thermometer said 28F at 3k ft but I'm not sure how accurate it is. Water bottle had frozen solid so it was obv below freezing. Took a drive into Accident to go to Firefly Farms and it was gorgeous, leaves have to be close to peak and the sky was such a deep blue....basically same as your pic!

Had a hard freeze up here last night. Very windy up on the mountain but a gorgeous day otherwise.

Long term forecast is such horseshit. In one tweet winter is gonna be a bust but in the next tweet it's gonna be epic for the eastern US. Friggen A, I could do that job.

43F here on Meadow Mountain. In the he middle of a cloud here with what looks like lake effect rain based on the radar.

Heading out to Meadow mountain to camp for the weekend and every night at 3000ft is supposed to get to freezing. We even got some TA KO2 tires on the G wagon in preps for winter. I'm ready.

Peed my pants a little reading that.

Yeah we may have gotten 6"+ here but it happened over six days so no sign of flooding. Not to mention the ground was really dry beforehand. Perfect for recharging soil moisture heading into winter. I'm just waiting for the inevitable cutoff ULL that happens with six days of straight snow and -20DFNs come January....lock it in.

This mist just won't quit. I did see some lighter skies for about 20min and the temp has warmed to a balmy 57F so at least there's progress.

MAKE IT STOP!!! I gotta be over 7" now. Guess I need to get a bigger rain gauge.

Have the grassy surfaces caved yet?

Armpit of the Midwest.

My rain gauge overflows at 5" and it overflowed at some point today. Pretty steady rain out there right now.

4.2" here. Really cold and windy this morning. Lots of leaves ripped off the trees.

I'll take my 40" of snow and be happy. Maybe even 50" if you do it kuchera.

Almost 4" as of now. Still breezy and misting so we might get that far by tomorrow morning. Thank God for heat pumps.

Just surpassed 3.5" here so far for storm totals and raining pretty heavy right now.