The air feels like fall but we've seen only a very few yellow leaves. The shrub maples that turn a beautiful bluish-red are among the earliest to change and they've yet to start.
The little Uinta ground squirrels with almost no tail are common here. Their local name is "picket pin" because they love to sit straight up on their haunches and popeye around, like a prairie dog. We haven't seen even one; they have already finished fattening up for the winter and gone into hibernation.
BTW, a picket pin was a stake driven into the ground to which horses were picketed or loosely tied overnight. These ground squirrels sit up straight and look like a tethering peg, a picket pin.
