The Last Images of Fall

In addition to providing food for monarch butterflies, the common milkweed is a photographer's joy.

Even my simple point and shoot camera can capture the wonder of the splitting open pods at the end of the season,

their contents just waiting for the right breeze to be carried about. If they survive the winter intact, I have such fun breaking open a pod and releasing the seeds into the spring air. If you've ever watched the seeds take flight, it's no wonder they were chosen to be animated in Fantasia.

There were a lot of leaves in the drive this year.

In taking the recycling can to the street, I couldn't help but scuffle through them. I should rake them up but what is fall without the sound and smell of scuffling through leaves? Maybe I'll get to it at the end of the month.

Beverage:  Berry flavored seltzer

Deb

Autumn Leaves

The heavy rains of last week knocked down almost all of the remaining leaves from the trees. You almost couldn't see the grass in the front yard for the leaves.

In spite of the heaps in the street, water drained very well. There were no pools by the drains.

The big leaves are sycamore from the tree south of the house. My yard has a huge maple from which all the rest come. What I love about fall rains and leaves is the smell. Here I go again, telling you about the smell, but that smell defines fall for me. It's such an earthy, elemental smell. As it was garbage night, I just stood in the drive inhaling the aroma of wet leaves.

Yesterday, we had temperatures dip well below freezing. The resultant frost outlined everything, especially leaves.

I love the look of these. Edged with frost, the color really stands out and each leaf is more noticeable.

My allergies have been kind of bad in October so I have not been able to go out and inhale the fall air with its earthen goodness. Now that we have had consistent frosts, I'm hoping that will ease whatever allergens I encounter. Then I will be able to wander a bit and really enjoy the last days of fall.

Beverage:  Roobios tea

Deb

Heralds of Fall

I always know fall is just around the corner when the quarter-sized spiders start spinning webs next to the house.

There are three separate webs here; one at the upper right, one at the lower right and one at the left middle. I saw the occupant of the lower right for awhile over the last two weeks but he/she has been absent since Thursday. I won't touch these until all the leaves have fallen off the tree at the NW corner of the house. The leaves on the bottom tiers are dropping but it's still green along the canopy top. I guess I can anticipate the spiders moving inside now too. Usually when they make webs next to the house they are preparing for coming inside.

The leaves float or are driven, depending upon the wind, onto the deck and some wind up in the birdbath.

I rather liked the image of the leaves in the water. I changed it however and put fresh water in because the bath gets slimy if leaves are left in it. There are a pair of cardinals using the bath exclusively now. I haven't seen any robins in it but the robins haven't left for the year. There were two in the trees singing yesterday.

Fall is just around the corner. It's been quite the summer.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

I miss the smell of fall.

I came home tonight during a gloriously sunny fall afternoon. After the heavy rains of Thursday through Saturday, there are almost no leaves left on the trees. The air is crisp as a fresh picked apple (Memo: Whole Foods for a bag of apples for sauce.) and the dried leaves stuck to my shoes have kept Mija occupied chasing them around the house until they disintegrate. This week's task is to dust the floors.

On the gentle breeze, I caught a whiff, just a few molecules of a scent, the scent of burning leaves.

Oh how I miss that.

At this time of the year, in the 1980's, I would rake all the leaves from the front around to the back and pile them on top of the area where the peonies were. Then the leaves and the dried peony stalks would be torched one afternoon when the air was still and any smoke went up and not sideways. Not only did this remove the leaves from the yard, but peonies benefit from the ash and to have those dried stalks burned. It cleanses the soil around them.

I know those with asthma and other breathing disorders hated this time of year, loathed it. That was the main reason given for banning the practice of burning leaves. I think another part was the one homeowner on the block who piled them up, lit them and then went inside on a Sunday with a stiff 30 mph wind from the south to sit in his easy chair with his Budweiser and watch the Bears. It was only when the fire trucks showed up that he suspected there might, perhaps, be a problem.

Controlled burns are the sustenance for prairie soils in any managed acreage. These usually occur in the spring and there is huge public notice along with protests that people with breathing problems can't go outside. I'm one of those people with allergies. On purpose standing downwind of any fire is, at best, stupid of me and, at worst, a recipe for coughing fits and breathing problems for the next two days. So I'm not altogether unsympathetic to that problem.

But, I miss the smell. I miss the returning of the leaves to the earth. I miss how the peonies looked the next year, glorious masses of pink blooms on plants 3 feet high. The bed is overrun with garbage plants now and I'm not even sure there are peonies growing there anymore. They were so diseased the last time I actually saw them, big brown splotches on the leaves and malformed flower heads. I know it's because the ground isn't sterilized from fire. Remedies were to use chemicals and that's worse than doing nothing.

So, for an instant tonight, I was transported back in time, to a place where a fast burning supervised leaf fire wasn't a criminal offense, where recycling meant returning the leaves to the soil, not just mulching them and hoping they decompose. I miss sticking marshmallows on the end of a stick and making smoky flavored s'mores.

There just isn't anything that compares to the smell and sight of a leaf fire. Nothing.

Beverage: Assam tea

Deb