Summer fades to Autumn

August 24, 2025

This has always been my favorite time of year.  Living in Texas all my life has not really afforded the opportunity to see the seasons change on the timeline Mother Nature intended. We often don’t have leaves changing until November.  Then the first blast of cold air comes in from Canada, the wind blows, and POOF!!  Autumn has ended overnight.  And, for some reason, that always made me a little melancholy. 

Yellowstone is different.  The ebb and flow of the changing season is palatable.  Rather than fresh flowers at the local market, there are now bundles of firewood.  You can see people preparing for the long winter that is inevitably just around the corner.  Fruit – cherries, pears, peaches and apples – are ripening on the trees.  Communities are coming together to harvest that fruit as quickly as possible.  Chalk this up to things you don’t have to worry about in North Central Texas – ripening fruit is an attractant.  For grizzly bears.  The community in which I live – Gardiner – has had problems with bears coming into town in the past.  So, the locals are doing what they can to stay safe and keep the bears safe.  There is a saying in the park – “A fed bear is a dead bear.”  Bears become habituated quickly if they are fed – either intentionally or unintentionally. 

I took a drive on one of my favorite little “back roads” in Yellowstone earlier in the week.  It’s called Blacktail Plateau Drive. It is a six-mile road that (mostly) parallels the main road.  But it is an oasis. I have driven it many times over the past 33 years, and I have always been rewarded with beauty.  I have seen a wolf, two blonde grizzlies, a coyote, and some of the most beautiful scenery.  There are a lot of aspen trees tucked back there, and some are already starting to display their gold finery for the season to come. 

The animals are responding to the changing seasons as well.  The prairie dogs are already hibernating.  The bison are in a full rut!  It is mating season, and love is in the air.  The elk are starting to come into their mating season as well.  More are filtering into Upper Mammoth, and soon they will be all over the lawns of the folks who live in Upper and Lower Mammoth Village.  They will be on the lawn of the clinic where I work, and we will have a big sign out reminding people not to come too close.  Apparently, there is a big, glorious – although quite temperamental – bull elk (#24) who loves to have a go at it with cars.  He can be quite testy during this mating season as he rushes to secure a harem to carry on his legacy. 

I love autumn.  I love pumpkin spice everything, and I cannot wait until our local coffee house, Bears Brew, has that as a choice on the menu.

Take time to watch how nature changes as the seasons flow from one to the next.