Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Autumn: part ll

Look at this lovely carpet of leaves in my back yard. (It's worth clicking to enlarge).


You can almost hear them whispering “don’t sweep us up, don’t sweep us up” can’t you?

You will probably remember that what impresses me so much about the trees here is their ability to multi-colour (ooh, a new verb is born). Well, the leaves do it too.

These leaves have decided that those of them on one branch will be yellow, those on another will be green. How do they do that? A fine example of peaceful democracy.



Here, they’re all mixed up together.



I wonder if that creates more friction between them, or if they still happily co-exist, green and yellow, at such close quarters. Does the tree engineer the design and control when each leaf may change from green to yellow, or does each leaf have free will?

Look here, though, how within a single leaf, the multi-colour effect is achieved. These do that clever thing that the trees do, holding on to one colour in the middle while letting a new colour creep in at the edges.



This one is a work of art. Deep red veins traced against that subtle orange background, on an even deeper red stem. Perfect.



A couple of final glorious pictures, just because I can’t resist, and it’s going to be at least 10 months till autumn comes round again.






And don’t you just love this song? (a rather clunky version of it!)



To me, it captures the whole essence of the way our lives are marked by change. The seasons are a part of that. The music somehow manages to be both melancholy and cheery at the same time, which is masterly, for change is, surely, both our enemy and our friend, a stealer and a giver.

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8 comments:

  1. Lovely post - love your carpet of leaves. Funnily enough I've just posted about 'Fall cleanup' services - I wonder what happens in your neck of the woods?

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  2. That's a lovely carpet of leaves. I would definitely not sweep it up yet. Yes, I love the way leaves change color gradually. I see the same effects here. I do envy you the red ones. They are rare here.

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  3. Hello! I just stopped by via nappy valley and was inspired to drop you a quick note coz I love your photos of leaves! I'm obviously really missing fall foliage as I've just left a similar mssg for NVG - but how nice that I can get an autumn fix online! We live in the desert and the palm trees are not in the least bit autumnal!

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  4. Lovely photos. Ours are doing the same here. Unfortunately they're blocking all the drains, backing up the sewage system and generally causing mayhem.

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  5. Lovely. It makes me want to get out a paint brush and paint a canvas. Leaves have such great colours, texture, and patterns.

    The Byrds song is great, not heard it for ages! :-)

    (ps I name-checked and linked to you in my last post about religion in America, as I was partly inspired by your post on the same subject!)

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  6. Now I have the Bryds n the brain! Turn, turn, turn...

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  7. Your front yard is a veritable work of art, leave the installation as is...

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  8. I LOVE that carpet of leaves. I've tried to take photos of carpets of pale brown beech leaves here in the UK but it never turns out quite so pretty.

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