The Best Way to Enjoy Fall

Over the years I have spent a lot of time in the woods with my children and now their children. I really enjoy hunting, fishing and hiking. All inexpensive ways to spend time with your family and get away from phones, tv, and other electronics. Family time which is too much missed today due to everyone being so busy.

Hiking is probably the best way for the whole family. You all exercise, communicate and just enjoy nature. Not everyone enjoys fishing and when hunting it is better to be quiet when searching or waiting for game.

My favorite season of the year is Autumn. To be a hunter you really need to know the woods, the animals and signs of the animals. It is very educational. You don't always have to be a hunter with a gun. You can hunt with a camera and it is just as challenging.

I live in the mountains of Pennsylvania. I often take my grandsons hiking. With the fall foliage is taking place in October there is so much going on in the woods around you.

We love to look for signs of turkey scratchings. This is where they walk through looking for food. How you learn their most recent patterns. You have an idea about what area they will be traveling through. Turkeys are constantly moving throughout the day feeding. Then before dusk, they fly up into the trees and roost for the night. It is much safer for the big birds. Another sign of where they travel is their droppings.

The deer rut; breeding is soon coming in also. We look for signs of where the bucks scrape the velvet off their antlers. They will pick a tree every now and then and just scrape those antlers against it. This helps get that velvet off. It will also rub the bark off the tree. We call that a buck rub. The buck will also find a low hanging branch, bite on it and scent it. Then scrape the ground below it and urinate. This is to show other bucks he is there and it also makes the female deer, the doe aware of his presence. The doe will also urinate in that area.

We find where squirrels spend a lot of time by their cuttings. Small pieces of branches they chew off. They eat and store a lot of nuts and acorns. We find a lot of shells. It is amazing how many fruit and nut trees there are in the woods.

It's a busy time in the woods and as my grandsons say, an adventure. I love teaching them so much about the animals. No, it is not to kill them. To understand them. They each have their own camera plus I carry mine. It is like a scavenger hunt. Constantly looking for something. Even where a deer recently laid.

I have raised my children the same way. Neither of them ever hunted but know very much about what goes on in the woods. They have memories of the times we spent and talked while hiking. Yes there were those complaints from my daughter but she survived and is happy her boys are learning the same things.

There's lot more to a hike in the fall. There is a whole class going on if you take the time to look and learn. To discuss what you find. You have those beautiful fall leaves but if you look deeper there is so much more. There is family time.