Autumn 2009

This year I never got a chance to go out and photograph the Autumn leaves until Halloween. Unfortunately, by that point half of the leaves were already off the trees and on the ground. I was outside at midday, about to start raking, when I noticed the beautiful pattern the leaves from the Japanese Red Maple had made. I went back into the house to get my camera and started taking pictures.

(I think this would make a beautiful endpaper for a book.)

A few years (or, maybe, decades) ago, we noticed a single sprig of what we thought was possibly a thorny Eucalyptus growing in a rock garden. We let it grow, wanting to see what it would turn out to be. After a few years we determined that it was a Barberry, probably a bird-propagated offspring from a stand of Barberry bushes along Main Street coming into Nanticoke. A week or two ago it made a very showy sight, but now it has lost many of its colorful leaves. Its bright red berries are more easily seen at this stage.



In all I think I collected seven large bags of leaves, and that's only about half of what I expect to get. Only ones scraped up from the road will be put out for the city; all others will be slow-composted (placed in bags with dirt and water added; the bags are then set aside, punctured with a shovel or pitchfork, and allowed to rot for five years or so) or used as mulch. (The bird netting that I put around my blueberries in the Spring will now serve to retain the leaves that I will pile on top of each blueberry bush for the Winter.)


(For the record: I believe my rosebushes officially stopped opening new buds as of yesterday. I don't recall rosebushes ever producing right up until the end of October. It may have something to do with the fact that I have been picking a rose every day and placing it on Gretchen's grave.)