First Frost

  It came just five days before the average date of first frost. Usually we see a frost by 10-09 but this year we found a light, patchy frost on the morning of 10-05. That's based on 49 years of my own record-keeping.

 While I didn't see any frost in my yard, as soon as I began doing my morning laps in the neighbor's lane, I found frosty grass lining my walkway. The area adjacent to Clayton Road, by her mailbox, was patchy white, too.

 Here's Millie's yard, also covered with patches of light frost. My Tempest weather station recorded a low of 32.7° at 7:45 AM, exactly when I stepped out the back door for my walk.

 And so we can't avoid thinking about winter. Cold weather isn't far away and the hint of its nearness was clearly etched on blades of grass this morning.