Changing Seasons

Every fall I wait for that first glimpse of the lake. The woods are so dense here we can't see it at all from May until the end of October. But slowly, leaf by leaf, I begin to see blue peek through until one day the leaves are all gone and our treehouse becomes a lakehouse!

This summer's heat and drought really has affected the color of the leaves this fall. We are lucky we got rain in August, so many trees were stressed and dropping leaves.

Mother Nature is amazing, to recover from weeks of scorching heat. The trees out our way are mostly oaks, poplars, walnuts and dogwoods.

There are Blackjack Oaks, White Oaks, Red Oaks, Pin Oaks, Post Oaks, Arkansas Oaks, Chinkapin Oaks... all on our land! If you google oaks you will see there are about 600 species across the world, all belong to the genus Quercus.

The dogwoods that dot the mountain are a crimson red in the fall. They love the shade of the dense woods and thrive. We just had an old one die this summer. Gnarled and missing many branches, the top had been broken out, most likely from ice or maybe a spring storm. It survived many winters until this summer's heat finally took it's toll.

All along the lake you see the bones of trees that have died. The Corp of Engineers requires us to leave them, they eventually fall and when the lake is at higher levels, it provides a place for fish to lay their eggs in the spring.

Rogers is an old town and in the historic district the streets are lined with beautiful old maples, my favorite. All shades of red, orange and golden yellow.

Great neighborhoods where kids ride bikes and people still set on their front porches.

I grew up in a house like this and sometimes I think I'd like to have an old house again. You get so much with an older home, not just the charm and craftsmanship of an era gone by. You get a house that owns it's land, it has a presence... a soul.

Wonderful old houses that say

"Welcome Home."