Faded flowers

As it does at the end of every summer, our daisy patch has gone from vibrant yellow, white, and green to a ghostly brown. The flower stalks stand in the garden like otherworldly sentinels of doom. They'll remain until I cut them down to prepare for spring's new growth.

A dead head, grateful or otherwise.

Today is the first day of astronomical autumn. That is, it is the season that begins with the autumnal equinox, one of two days each year when the amount of daylight is equal to the amount of darkness, and ends at the winter solstice. According to Wikipedia, the astronomical seasons were first described by the ancient Romans.

Meteorological autumn began on the first of September and will end on the thirtieth of November. Meteorological seasons are mostly calendar based and coincide with four groups of three months each. Again from Wikipedia, meteorological seasons were first described in the late eighteenth century.