The woman is 93 years old. Autumn is a favorite with her, too, even though she admits to liking change, meaning the other three receive votes, too.
“My imagination takes care of it,” she told me. You see, she is blind, not just legally blind but can’t-see blind.
I deliberately asked Anna Marnie (not her real name) how she could enjoy this season of color without being about to see vibrant orange sugar maple leaves, dark blue bottle gentians blooms, or huge yellow sunflower head aces.
“I had my eyesight all those years and now my imagination takes care of it,” she said. “So the smells, temperatures, humidity, wind, and feel are what I notice as autumn begins to arrive.”
Ah, Anna Marnie alerting us there are more ways to experience fall. We, too, can detect fall with all our senses and probably would notice and react to this season more if we deliberately involved the other four, not just sight. Maybe we could find pleasure closing out eyes and allowing fall to filter into our noses, ears, bare skin, and taste buds. After all, some businesses give us an overload of pumpkin spice about now.
Here is southern Wisconsin, autumn begins and often continues in small ways, not with hectors of hillsides of golden shagbark hickories. Maybe then we’d realize fall’s here and would laughed when we slipped on hickory nuts or tried to pick up a chestnut fruit.
A partial list of fall smells include red cedar seed cone smell, beebalm dried flower heads, crushed grape fruits, fresh sulphur shelf mushrooms, and the tell-tale of wild carrot tops.
Page one of the 2024 Wisconsin Hunting Regulations, now posted on the DNR website, lists seven “what’s new” beginning with F-shot is now legal when hunting migratory birds. Junior antlerless deer harvest authorizations are valid on both public and private lands. The bag limit is one turkey during the youth turkey season. Air guns are now legal to big game and game birds. Crow season has a new start date. The definition of muzzleloader has changed, and youth hunters no longer need a Canada goose permit during the two-day youth waterfowl season.
Most of this “news” are of little concern for most hunters.
Vegetation highlights and lowlights include a general low acorn crop on red and white oaks. Walk and look surveys suggest abundant wild apples, crabapples, hickory and walnut fruits. Lush growth of ragweed and hitchhiker weeds, too. Ginseng berries are red and falling from the plant; plant the seeds close by. The license to dig ginseng, residents and nonresidents, costing $15.75 and $30.75 respectively, must be purchased before going into the woods to dig.
Fawn spots are fading and whitetail buck antlers have stopped growing and will be shedding velvet soon. Tree squirrels are clipping tree twigs and scurrying down to consume the attached nuts, particularly the few white oak acorns.
Fall fishing has started to pick up according to Wally Banfi, at Wilderness Fish and Game in Sauk City.
“While guiding on the Madison Lakes recently, two anglers caught two muskies and had one follow,” he said.
Bluegill fishing has been good, Banfi said, but perch numbers, and catching, are down.
Even with lower water levels in the Wisconsin River in the Sauk Prairie area, Banfi expects a good sturgeon hook and line season this year.
“A number of sturgeon have recently been caught and released on Lake Wisconsin,” he said.
The season is Sept. 7-30. Anglers planning to catch and keep a legal sturgeon (minimum 60 inches long) must have a general 2024 fishing license and a lake sturgeon tag, which must be validated immediately upon taking possession of the fish and before moving it. The legal fish must then be registered at a designated registration station.
— Jerry Davis is an Argyle native and a freelance writer who lives in Barneveld. He can be reached at
sivadjam@mhtc.net or at
608-924-1112.
