Autumn Equinox

The weather is slowly changing. The days will soon shorten.  This time of the year is so beautiful to me.

I love going into the storage closet and pulling out sweaters, jackets and yummy warm socks.  Although my life changes very little from season to season – at this time of the year I have wonderful memories of the first day of school, football games, leaves changing and then falling to make a rustle of my morning walks.

With the change of season I feel a change of direction.  I don’t exactly have a road map yet but my mind is moving, one step at a time, toward work that will lend itself to cooler days, hot cups of tea and the enjoyment of bright blue Fall skies.

"Delicious Autumn!  My very soul is wedded to it and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the ever successive autumns." - George Eliot

All around me...

...I see the colors of rust and tea dyed cloth and hot apple cider.

Our Birch tree looks like the leaves have clung to its trunk - or it has been decoupaged by a somewhat incompetent 'paster'.  This is actually the layers of the trunk slowly changing color and releasing themselves from the bark.

I see all of the leaves which sheltered us during the summer now laying on the ground, ready to decay into the earth beneath them.

Some would look at this 'weedy mess' and see just that.  But you and I see the colors and the textures and its all quite beautiful isn't it.

"Now Autumn's fire burns slowly along the woods and day by day the dead leaves fall and melt." - William Allingham

Red Leaves

These are the first Autumn leaves I've found this year -- found in the middle of September but I'm just now getting around to showing them what with one thing and another.

I remember the day -- it was cloudy and I was surrounded by green everywhere.  Looking down at my feet I spied a red leaf, laying there in all its glory.  I looked up but could not see where it might have come from - probably blown away in one of our rainstorms.  A little bit later I found another deep red leaf.  Could this be an omen of a beautiful Fall coming our way?

"October is the fallen leaf, but it is also a wider horizon more clearly seen.  It is the distant hills once more in sight, and the enduring constellations above them once again." - Hal Borland

Time Passes

 

Time passes and we are into Autumn now.  I'm not sure quite how we got here so quickly as it seems like it was June just a little bit ago.  Perhaps the rainy, wet summer that we had made the time pass faster, since there were a lot of 'summer' things we really couldn't do.

But now, I wander around the yard and spy the Oakleaf Hydrangeas turning brown upon their stems.  They are still lovely,  with their 'vintage' color - like a faded old dress.

I spot the 'regular' hydrangeas and some of them are still lovely - holding onto their color as everything around them fades to tan and brown.

There are some spots of red here and there, but I have to look very carefully to spot them.

These brown lichen  make me think of pancakes as they cling to an old tree stump.  Actually they look quite delicious.

"Autumn wins you best by this its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay." - Robert Browning

Spatter Painting

 

It looks like Mother Nature has been playing around with her paint brush.

Did she mix some vats of die and then drop dribbles on the leaves to check the colors?

Did she have a wish to go two tone...?

I'm sure there's a very scientific reason why these mottled leaves were at my feet on this summer morning, but I prefer to think of my friends who dye and wonder what they would make of these beauties and if their yards are filled with splattered leaves.

"Keep your love of nature, for that is the true way to understand art more and more." - Vincent van Gogh

A Charming Leaf Pocket

The latest, and perhaps last pocket.  This design was driven by the leaf charms that I recently discovered.  Such perfect little metal leaves - they definitely needed a home.

This design also seems to be a fitting ending to summer.  My mind and creations will soon be drawn inside - to warm colors and quiet days.

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower." - Albert Camus

Falling for Fall

I'm reveling in the beauty that surrounds me at this time of the year.  Fall brings with it colors and scents and sounds and feelings so particular to this time of year. 

Color - how many colors are seen during a walk in the woods?  Colors that only appear for a short time each year.  Colors to savor and remember later on when the trees have lost their leaves and the colors are mostly grey, black and white. 

Scents - the scent of stew cooking in the crockpot, of freshly poured tea awaiting its first sip, of cider and pumpkins and cinnamon and every manner of warm smells.

Pictures - because I know that fall won't last as long as I would like it to I must take picture after picture.  Pictures of the changes in the woods, of the blue sky peeking through coloring leaves. 

Sounds - the crunch of leaves underfoot as they pile up everywhere.  This is a Fraser Magnolia leaf - at least 15" long.  Its HUGE!  During the spring and summer we are blessed with beautiful white flowers - during the fall we find these large leaves on the ground, dwarfing all the leaves around it.

Feelings - who can resist the feeling of a cool, crisp October day.  This is a day to wear my favorite sweater, to sit with a cup of tea on the porch looking out over the ever changing woods beyond. 

This is fall!!

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower." - Albert Camus