The Decompression of a Boomer

Fall was absolutely stunning this year. I tried to savor it – took a lot of photos with my iphone, mostly on our walks through Tautphaus Park.

Where some of the trees are a century old.

And giant Maples abound!

This year the colors were incredible.

I kept taking photos through late October, thinking, Oh, now, this is it! This is the peak! The snow is coming! Maybe next week! But sixty degree temps prevailed throughout October.

I snapped a photo of our plum tree out our kitchen window on Oct 23.

And our back yard on October 28.

Halloween is coming!

Our black cat, Tee-Box even posed for this picture.

On Friday, October 29, Megan was a witch by day

and ‘Lady Gaga’ for her party in the evening.

On Halloween I snapped another photo of our old plum tree out front through our kitchen window.

It’s knarly looking, with half its leaves gone. There’s our vibrant Canadian Maple standing in contrast in the front yard.

The weather stayed nice. Really nice. David and I hiked Rainy Creek on Thursday, November 4th. It was 65 degrees, a near record high.

The sky was a crystalline cloudless blue.

Ah, but the weather was changing. We knew it. Storms were moving in, but we had one last weekend of warm weather to enjoy. On Sunday, Nov. 7, we enjoyed one more balmy walk through Tautphaus.

The trees were as stunning as ever.

On Sunday, Nov 7, I took what I knew was the last photo of the flowers blooming in our back yard.

The wind was already howling before we went to bed on Sunday night, Nov. 7. And the next morning we woke up to … uh … well, suffice it to say that as you entered about any hardware or dept store on Monday you were met straight away with a stack of shiny new snow shovels. Luckily we have a large snow scoop, which David is very adept with. He shoveled Monday evening, Nov. 8, and I stepped out the front door and captured a picture.

The light wet snow continued throughout the night and we woke up Tuesday to a winter wonderland, with scenes you’d find on Christmas Cards.

Snow was clinging to every accessible tree branch

and piled up an inch high on even the tiniest branches.

Here we are taking our down-right-invigorating walk at noon on Tuesday. A stark and bitter contrast to our walk in Tautphaus, just two days before!

Some trees seemed more jolted by the snow, and unprepared, than we were.

And unwilling to give up the orange. Although admittedly, that tree clinging to its orange glory faces some stiff competition for beauty next to it’s shimmering flocked neighbor.

And here’s our knarly old plum tree again – on Nov. 10.

Yeah, well, it’s the weekend again now – a week after those last balmy walks through Tautphaus. The trees in our yard are stark naked, the flowers all froze. Here’s a picture of our back yard.

Care to sit down?

Yeah, well, me neither. I took this photo of our deck furniture from inside the house. I suppose the snow has receded enough so as to run me out of excuses as to why I can’t rake.

Turning again to our front yard, here’s a picture of that stunning Canadian Maple.

Well, it was a stunning gold up to about three days ago, when the leaves dropped off en masse.

A stark naked May tree adorns the west side of our front lawn.

Okay, so we’ve got some serious raking to do.

Get out there, quick! Rake like maniacs!

Yeah, before Old Man Winter returns with a vengeance.

This entry was posted on November 15, 2010 at 9:36 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.