Allergy-sufferers may not agree, but goldenrod has always been one of my favorites.

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Maybe my love for it is rooted with my memories of elementary school back in the 1960s when Goldenrod tablets were the standard in writing paper.  We only had white paper at home (and used it very sparingly), so I only had the privilege of writing on that special golden paper at school.  I always loved everything about elementary school, and perhaps I fell in love with goldenrod during my early school years.

And this year there seems to be a prolificacy of these gorgeous flowers, which appear to be a cross between a sunflower and black-eyed susans.  I have been obsessed with them and found out they are called Jerusalem artichokes.

If you started looking as you drive through the countryside, they seem to be EVERYWHERE this year!  And now I'm on a mission to get some for the cabin.

As a side note...because of these beauties I got to meet the Wayne County Sheriff up close and personal.  I don't understand why he might think it odd that a woman like me would pull into the ditch (I didn't know it was his mother's property!) and begin walking up and down the roadside pointing her big camera with a zoom lens every which way.  He wasn't particularly friendly at first, but by the time I finished with him we had exchanged names and handshakes, shared our family trees, talked about the books I wrote, and I had helped him pick a bouquet to take in to his elderly mother.  As I later related the story to Kim, he shook his head as he told me the suspicious-turned-friendly man I met was the sheriff.  Who knew???

This transition between summer and fall, with its lovely...

...golden roadsides.