This is something that should instill an almost hysteria type enthusiasm in the most die hard of snow lovers like myself. Early this morning as I was driving to church in one of the smaller hollows of this area I noticed *LOTS* of leaves were turning and falling on the road. There was almost a late September feel to things. It seemes that the hollow and back mountain areas that contain colder air are causing the tree's to start turning earlier this year.

Most of the leaves that are falling belong to walnut tree's and sycamore tree's where are always the first to turn up here. Normally these don't begin until around the 2-3rd week of September but it looks like autumn and winter might be making earlier appearances this year. Maple, Oak and other trees don't seem to be affected just yet. For information purposes, the area I was at this morning was about 1400' in elevation where nighttime temps are dropping consistently into the low 50's and high 40's.

All of this MADE me get out my board and boots today just to try them on in the living room and sit there for an hour watching olympic highlights dreaming of being the next shaun white.

We took a quick business trip to Cleveland this weekend. Driving thru PA and mid-Ohio, I noticed a lot of trees just starting to change. You know when the tops of trees start getting that greenish-brown look? There was a lot of that plus some small trees completely turned and sumac just starting to go to red.

I sure hope this means an early winter!

On WTOP this morning they mentioned that the Farmers Almanac is predicting a "wild" winter. See article here ... www.wtop.com/index.php?sid=256833&nid=220 ... I can handle wet as long as its cold enuf to turn the stuff to snow.

I was in the Poconos this past weekend, trees are green (I attrobute it to the lower altitude). BUT.... I saw several flocks of loons and geese in their usually organized formation heading off to the South... This is August, they normally fly in Late Sept. Could that be an omen?