To autumn...

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, 

   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

       To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

       For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

~John Keats

(I missed Garden Blogger's Muse Day on Oct. 1, but this Keats poem describes the season so well. I'm not too late to join Dave's Fall Color Project meme. Check it out, and keep track of the beautiful color changes from north to south in the Northern Hemisphere. Thanks, Dave! All photos in this post were taken in southwestern Wisconsin or southeastern Minnesota near the Mississippi River.)