This was two weeks ago.
This was last weekend.Autumn arrived in a week. These two pictures were taken along the same stretch of the trail where the dogs and I walk. The one on top shows green leaves just showing a bit of yellow tone. A week later, you can see how much the leaves have changed.
Things are getting beautiful here and I wish I had more reasons to just drive around and marvel at it all. I have asked people if I'm wrong about the speed of the change, but most agree -- It's as if the leaves were holding back and then, pow, just took off. What everyone is hoping is that they'll stay on the trees until most of them have changed. They are starting to fall, but slowly.
Incidentally, I'm finding that apples are not nearly as big a part of the local economy as they are in the Champlain Valley of New York, but the people who do grow them seem to grow more varieties -- Galas and Honey Crisps and new types like that. There are some pretty good apples at the roadside stands here.
This is the time of year I missed most when I lived out west. The weather has been a little too warm, but we'll have some nice crisp days soon enough. Meanwhile, the scenery still blows my mind, 20 autumns after I came back to the Northeast.
Oh, yes, yes, yes, how I envy you this particular blessing of climate.
ReplyDeleteAs achingly beautiful as Northern California can be, fall leaves and the sudden change in the texture of the air when it becomes crisp are things I miss very, very strongly.
45 years later, I still think that this is what the background of a thrown football should be. (I'm tossing a ball to my Dad in this picture, taken by my Mother in October, 1962.)
Beautiful! We miss it around here too. In my librarian days, when i lived even further south than this, the Oct issue of one of the library publications arrived with an autumn-color cover picture so gorgeous that i kept it on the shelf next to my desk, and sometimes just took it out to look at it and sigh, while the muggy SC heat went on.
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