Sooner or later, I knew I would wake up to genuine silver, and when the wind died last night and there was was no audible sign of even the hardiest of crickets—the only noise came from the booming hoots of Great Horned Owls—I figured that the leaves would be wearing sparkling clothes this morning. The average date of the first frost on our ridge is somewhere between the 11th and the 20th, and because of our microclimate, we tend to be on the late side—and we're often frost-free even when the foliage a bit downslope from us has gotten nailed. Today, however, dawned as an equal opportunity frost, and the grasses and meadow flowers bowed their collective heads in the sub-32-degrees cold and let the ice crystals do their destructive work. Everything looked pretty, but as the sun rose to melt the ice, it was clear that damage had been done. The growing season was over for the year.