Ahhh. . .November. In one of my posts last month where I ranked the months in the order of my most favorite to my least favorite, November came in at #2 behind only October. The leaves explode in color, and the temperatures begin to cool although warm days continue to linger. Such a wonderful time of year!
In Arkansas, November is almost always full of surprises. Warm and sunny one day, cool and rainy the next, then back to warm and sunny the day after that. The only predictable thing about the month is its unpredictability. During the first week of the month, we got several inches of much needed rain. That was followed by early morning temperatures in the 30s and 40s, which felt downright cold. Of course, the following week warmed right back up before cooling down ever so slightly the next week. To give an idea of the temperature swings, nighttime temperatures were in the upper-40s to lower-50s at the beginning of the month; by the end of the month, they were dropping below freezing. How’s that for change! There’s a saying in Arkansas that if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes, and it will change. That is definitely true in November.
WHERE I’VE BEEN
I did my best to take advantage of the nice weather and was able to make three trips this month. The first was to the Dagmar Wildlife Management Area on one of those cool, overcast November days. I’m glad I went when I did because I discovered, after I got back home, that the next day was the opening day of the modern gun deer hunting season. Needless to say, I don’t like being in the woods during deer season. It’s never a question of if someone will be accidentally shot during hunting season; the only question is how many times is it going to happen. I do not want to be one of those times!
Because of the crazy temperature swings, I don’t think the leaves really knew what to do. I think they were trying to figure out if it was really Autumn or if it was still Summer because some were in the process of changing colors, and others were indicating that Autumn’s end is drawing near. This “indecision” certainly made for an interesting landscape.
Oak trees dressed in their Autumn colors, Dagmar Wildlife Management Area, Arkansas
Autumn leaves cling to their branches, Dagmar Wildlife Management Area, Arkansas
A couple of weeks later, I made a visit to the Lake Sylvia Recreation Area in the Ouachita National Forest. As I expected would be the case, most of the leaves had dropped from their trees. But I discovered one section of forest where the leaves were full of color and still hanging from their branches. The scene reminded me of something the late Bob Ross might paint.
Autumn leaves, Lake Sylvia Recreation Area, Arkansas
Two days later after I visited Lake Sylvia, I made my third trip of the month. This time, I went back to Collins Creek. I have visited this area more than a dozen times in the last 10 years, but I have never visited in November. So, I was curious to see what I might discover. As I had expected, though, most of the leaves had fallen, but there were still a few patches of color around that I tried to capture. I still haven’t gone through the files to see which ones will make the cut and which ones won’t. Hopefully, I will be able to do that in the next few weeks and post some of those photographs.
CHECK IT OUT
In his blog post, Beware the Critic Mindset, Guy Tal discusses why we should appreciate a piece of art before we critique it.
Video: How to be MORE CREATIVE – with this one MAGIC TIP (Alister Benn, 13 mins): Alister shares a simple-to-use, easy-to-implement technique that can improve the creativity of your landscape photography.
Well, that’s my recap for November. I hoped you enjoyed reading it, and I hope to see you back here next time.