Fires of Autumn

The fires of autumn burned slowly this year. Not for us the spectacular leafy conflagration of other falls; instead, a slow build and a long flicker, as a tree here and a tree there yielded to the shortening days and cooling nights.

There were, however, some pockets of glorious colour. We found one on a drive through the next county one sunny day in late October.

Red oak under a blue sky:

The full fall spectrum - green, blue, gold, scarlet, brown:

Maple leaves in layers of beauty:

 On the floor of the woods, a study in browns:

Carpet of impermanence:

More maple leaves, like flocks of small bright birds in a dim wood:

A leaf that blew in the open window of the car as we drove:

Heavenly October sky:

O the enchanted roads of autumn!

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Late October was also distinguished by some spectacular sunsets....

One evening we had a double rainbow...

...followed by an a sunset so stunning as to seem almost unreal:

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In other, less glorious October news: I was a big baseball fan in my Southern California youth - a youth somewhat blighted, I may say, by watching our beloved Dodgers lose the World Series more times than I care to remember.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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Suddenly it's mid-November, and a grey November too. We're in the fading stage of fall, where the lawns are still somewhat green, but trees and fields are subsiding into a sameness of (rather drab) colour. Sub-freezing nights have killed off the last of the lingering garden plants, and a sharp northwest wind has been blowing.

Now for the long cold, the lengthening northward shadows, the putting up of winter curtains, the early nightfall. Now for evenings of crochet and hot cocoa, with flannel sheets beckoning at the day's end. To everything there is a season.

How is your November going?

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