As winter's first snowflakes drifted through the dark, some landed on top of dead plants, fallen leaves, twigs, and other detritus of the forest floor. In many places, snow never fully reached the ground. That was surely true for the protected hideaway of my thermometer. By dawn, it was buried under six inches and counting.

Despite falling temperatures, the relative warmth of the cold rain and the residual heat of summer were still radiating from the soil. At sunrise, when I checked the weather station, the air temp had dropped to 24 degrees Fahrenheit, but the sensor cozied up to the earth under a fresh blanket of snow read 33 degrees. After two winters of thin snow, the Subnivean Zone has returned!

Read all about it in this week's Natural Connections or listen to the podcast. Find links to both at https://www.cablemuseum.org/connect/ or in our profile.

Check out Emily's third book, hot off the press! Natural Connections 3: A Web Endlessly Woven, is available at several local bookstores, at the Cable Natural History Museum, or at cablemuseum.org/connect!

The arching stems, decorative berries, and warmly hued, persistent fall foliage of barberry, plus the complete lack of deer browse on their twigs, are why they were brought to the U.S. as an ornamental plant in 1875. That was fine, until in the 1980s they started to spread out and displace native plants. Now Japanese barberry is considered invasive in 17 states, including Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa.

A barberry thicket also provides a safe, fox-resistant haven for mice, and a shady, humid home for ticks. Deer ticks feed on mice, who are reservoirs for Lyme disease.

The shallow water in Northwoods marshes and bays began to crackle with a skim of ice recently, gently reminding everyone that winter is on the way. Ice-up is a firm deadline for many beings who migrate to travel at least a little bit farther south. I got caught up in the flurry of activity and soon found myself in the Mississippi River Flyway swooping around the hills and corners of the Great River Road with other Northerners heading south.

Check out Emily's third book, hot off the press! Natural Connections 3: A Web Endlessly Woven, is available at several local bookstores, at the Cable Natural History Museum, or at cablemuseum.org/connect!

Beside the trail stood a spreading shrub with a few rays of sunlight illuminating tiny yellow flowers that looked just like sunbursts themselves. Witch-hazel! The flower-dappled shrub twinkled like a reminder of spring. While they do bloom near Halloween, witch-hazel's name is probably a misspelling of old English words wicke or wych that meant "lively" and "to bend." They refer to the use of a forked branch of witch-hazel as a dowsing rod, which purportedly would bend downward to point out a good location to dig a well.

In a bit of reverse-dowsing, rain showers helped me see the leaf, and sun rays helped me see the witch-hazel. On that fall day, I found a deep well of beauty.

"Turn here, they're heading north!" I directed my fiancé as we navigated the gravel roads of Crex Meadows Wildlife Area near Grantsburg, WI. We'd spotted a line of sandhill cranes flying through the sunset sky, and were following them toward what we hoped would be a spectacular evening of birdwatching.

The air shimmered as I walked through the forest, the heavy mists encompassing me in a damp blanket. As my shoes trod on soggy leaves, I took in the quiet serenity of the forest. Many of the trees had begun their annual changing of the colors, painting the canopy in shades of yellow, orange, red and green. Their discarded leaves were already beginning to dot the forest floor in late September. But fallen leaves weren't the only contributors of color on the ground–the fall mushrooms were popping in the Northwoods.

At first, a flutter at the edge of my vision made me think that an autumn leaf had somehow managed to fall half a mile to the middle of the lake. A closer look revealed the dark purple wings of a mourning cloak butterfly. In late September?

Weeks later, a flutter at the edge of my vision caught my attention just in time to watch an autumn leaf come to rest on the ground. Small quaking aspen leaves carpeted the trail in a mosaic of yellow and green. They were evidence of yet another way that a Lepidopteran (butterflies and moths) survives the winter.

Colorful leaves and colorful wings flutter on fall breezes, all getting ready for winter.

"Just hold her like this," Kurt told me. So I carefully nestled my first two fingers into the soft, warm feathers around the neck of this tiny northern saw-whet owl, cradled her soft, warm torso in the palm of my hand, and secured her brown and white wings with my thumb and other fingers. My heart stopped for a moment, but under those soft, warm feathers I could feel her smaller heart racing.

Learn more about the volunteer opportunities with Mike and Kurt's saw-whet owl nest box and MOTUS tower research on the Museum's iVolunteer page: https://cablenhm.ivolunteer.com/saw-whet-owl-research

Finally, within sight of the next lake, movement near the toe of my boot startled me almost to the point of disaster.

Big black eyes with golden rims stared up at me from the slope of a rock. Crooked toes gripped the rough surface, and long hind legs braced for a quick escape. The green frog who had jumped out from underneath my boot perched motionless, as if that made them invisible.

Last week I wrote about acorns clattering across my roof. As it turns out, nuts are raining down on many of your roofs, too! Commiserating over the loud, foot-rolling acorns makes me feel like part of an extended community. Are the oaks part of a similar community? And why are they suddenly attacking us with acorns!

Oaks are mast species, which means that all the trees in an area will produce a bumper crop of acorns at the same time, but only every two to five years. From mice to owls to chatting neighbors, oaks, and the mystery of their mast years, are at the center of our Northwoods community.