John Pepin, Michigan Department of Natural Resources

With the gusting of a warm wind, a whirl of fallen and dried autumn leaves wrapped around me like a cyclone and circled toward the sky.

In a flash, the leaves were as high as the treetops and kept moving into the open skies where they were unceremoniously scattered like colorful confetti.

However late it might have been in its arrival, this was now the height of autumn’s beauty, splendor and wonder, my favorite time of the year.

This particular autumn in the north woods has been especially delicious with the peak of fall color holding off longer and longer before appearing finally sometime past the first week in October, depending on where you were.

Meanwhile, the warmer than typical temperatures helped fire the conditions prime for a glorious Indian summer. There are many days in June that do not rival the fair skies and warm season we’ve had this fall.

Even into the wee hours past midnight, the temperatures have remained warm for this time of year on many nights, which has helped delay the leaf color peak.

In the relative darkness, I hear the hoots of a great horned owl that has been singing regularly for a few weeks in the woods behind our house.

In the front yard, off a good distance toward the lake, a barred owl hoots his song, both birds doing so bathed in a whitewash of moonlight.

The glow casts shadows of bare branches across my face. The light is bright enough that I don’t need any additional help to see the trail in front of me or numerous features across the landscape, like rocks, trees and fallen logs.

Almost every step taken creates the sound of crunching leaves beneath my feet. Despite some rain that fell a few nights ago, the forest remains very dry and crunchy.

And though it’s late in the year for this part of the country to break out into a rash of wildland fires, that’s been the occurrence over the past several days.

The gusting winds, warm temperatures and relatively low humidity have combined to create some tinderbox conditions ready to spread and stoke any blaze that might ignite.

Limited rain, though helpful, has been quick to dry up.

After the sun rose the following day, I found myself floating atop the waters of an inland lake, the day’s weather truly divine.

In a rowboat, gliding through an armada of thousands of dried and curled leaf boats that slid across the water’s surface, the sunshine was soaking in through my skin right to the bone.

It was another day when the temperature had surpassed 70 degrees. There was a wind, but it was warm. More Indian summertime.

Along the rim of the lake, there were old, wooden birdhouse boxes nailed to tree trunks in hopes of attracting wood ducks. I wonder if they worked. Regardless, they’d be empty now this late in the season.

Contrails cut the blue-sky pie into pieces with their crisscrossed paths. People headed near and far, the sun shining down on the silvery wings of aircraft.

Me, I’ll sit right here in the bow of this boat and soak up as much sunshine as I can. It is such an uplifting feeling I feel like I could float up over the water.

A few brook trout were darting out from under their submerged log hiding places. At a roadside park nearby, people were enjoying the picnic tables, dressed casually, enjoying food.

Others would hike the rocky trail down along the river where there appeared from the highway bridge to be more boulders than water in the stream course.

I imagined that the waterfalls at the head of the gorge were still a thing of great beauty to see, even if the water was low.

There are bright-colored green mosses and orange and glow-in-the-dark, yellow-green tinted lichens growing there along the black rocks, where the spray from the waterfall and airy foam floated up to the canyon walls.

In springtime, these waters are nothing to play with.

Slippery shoreline rocks covered in ice and snow challenge visitors with a prospect of death at the end of a hasty slip or fall.

Most assuredly more than one soul has been lost here to the tremendous flow and unforgiving boulders and logs beneath the water’s surface.

But for many, the sight and spray and exhilarating feeling are worth the risk and the danger. In the spring, the river gorged on ice and snow flows at its greatest height under crystal azure skies. The roar alone from the pounding waters is awe-inspiring to hear from as far away as the turnout parking lot.

Not today though.

The river is slowly massaging the rocks as it slides around and over the boulders and flat sheets of slate. Quiet, lazy flowing water.

After the precipitous drop of the falls, first down a short staircase and then abruptly off a high bench, the great canyon and the water bend to the left and turn sharply.

This is the kind of day when eagles are soaring on the thermals, those warm breezes that make eagles want to float too.

The backdrop to all of this are the hills covered largely in northern hardwoods now stripped of their leaves with bare branches reaching like outstretched fingers into the sky.

In some places, those places that have had more rain and less wind, are still hanging on to their golden yellow, scrumptious orange and fiery red leaves. In the wetter areas, tamarack needles have turned bright yellow, like the color of placer gold.

In addition to the ghostly moonlight, hooting owls and long shadows spread across the countryside, there are more indicators that All Hallow’s Eve is just around the corner.

Dried cornstalks, smirking farm field scarecrows and rusty barbed wire wrapped around rotting dry fence posts help the harvest moon herald in the dead and the dying of the light that comes with autumn.

Black crows loudly proclaim the arrival with their murderous cawing.

On Halloween night, the curtain between the last glowing embers of autumn’s jack ‘o lanterns and scary frights will flicker out. When the clock makes a few more ticks, the curtain will be torn between the darkness and light.

At midnight, the new day will rush in with all its darkness like deep blue ink, blowing out the candles until the spring. In the meantime, the days will grow shorter and shorter until just about Christmastime.

Then, it’s back the other way, like some Viking boat oarsmen pulling hard on the handles moving the big ship forward toward spring’s eternal light, on to Valhalla.

Back in the yard at home, the woodpeckers have returned to the bird feeders. It’s good to see the red-bellied woodpeckers have lasted the entire summertime and they are still here.

The rest of the woodpeckers are the usual fare of hairy and downy varieties, and I suspect pileated, along with nuthatches and chickadees. Groups of arriving dark-eyed juncos are here too, while the yard is also providing stalking grounds for a group of eight robins all vying to be the early bird or the last to head south for the winter.

In the air there is the way off sound of a shotgun blast somewhere out there along the lakeshore, another stitch in the fabric of autumn.

The doe and three fawns that have been frequenting the yard to run around and play dodging and jumping games haven’t been around for a few days. I did see a nice 6- or 8-point buck with two does out along the road by the river bridge a couple days back.

Each evening, I’ve been making a few visits out to the backyard to see the skies, bask in the moonlight and listen to the owls. I have yet to hear or see any Halloween ghosts or enchanting witches.

But it’s still a little early.

I can wait for them right here, sitting against the bricks on the back wall, smelling the musty musk of autumn leaf and litter perfume.

It’s a very heady smack once it hits my senses. It can make me dizzier than a goblet or two of spiked hot apple cider.

I need to find a way to get more time out here in the world of nature, even if it is merely the nature of my own backyard. That’s one thing that never seems to change, no matter the season.

I can see why some folks who are retired are happy to do little more than sit in a chair outside and watch the world go by, day after day.

Here’s a toast to autumn, dead leaves, pumpkin spice and all.

I’m so glad to be here to enjoy it.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan’s world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula.