The only other time I ever went to Rock Creek Farm was just after I came to Colorado and I didn’t have any sense.

I went out in the middle of a scorching summer day. Even worse were the mosquitoes that ate up a good part of me.

But when I got there about 6:30 this morning it was cold enough to put up the hood of my down jacket and wear hand warmers in my gloves. Then the sun came up and presented this glorious sight of the Halloween and Thanksgiving season.

A Pumpkin Morning

Rock Creek Farm is an agricultural preserve in Louisville just nine miles east of my apartment. I encountered no mosquitoes there today and few people. One of them was this fisherman who claimed to have recently caught a huge fish in little Stearns Lake.

A Slight Exaggeration?

Boulder County bought Rock Creek Farm in 1980 for agriculture to be a buffer against growing Broomfield to the south. The county leases most of the preserve to farms like the U-Pick-It pumpkin farm above and this one below. The hot-air balloon in the sky above doesn’t have anything to do with the farms but might be the same one I rode last month.

Balloon Farm

Long before I returned to the trailhead at 10:30 this morning the day had warmed up almost enough to remind me of my previous visit to Rock Creek Farm. I had to shed not only my gloves but also my jacket as the temperature rose well into the 70s on this beautiful Indian summer day.