Fallen Down

Yesterday morning I went outside to go to work and I couldn’t find my car! Now, this is a bright blue, little peanut of a car, but still… bigger than me, so it shouldn’t go missing, right?

After that instantaneous jolt of adrenaline I realized… there it was! Right there in front of me… but it was camouflaged! I could barely see it through all of the leaves that had fallen upon and around it. Overnight! I went into the house Tuesday evening and my tree had leaves with maybe a dozen or so on the ground. I came out Wednesday morning and I could see the sky through the branches and my car was buried in leaves.

What happened to cause my sad tree to just toss her leaves off all at once like that? To say it was a little odd is just an understatement. There wasn’t any wind, really, and only a light rain that evening. Apparently it was enough to cause the majority of leaves to fall that night, enveloping our cars and driveway and sidewalk and yard in golden, crunchy goodness.

My trees on fire have melted. The yards (of those non-OCD homeowners) are now a sea of colors, mixed with the green of the grasses that haven’t gone dormant yet. I miss them in the trees, but it’s a different sort of pretty on the ground. Waves of gold leaves flow into trickles of burgundy and reds. Again, I’m at a loss because I have not been carrying my camera. How dare I! But I have, at least, taken the time to notice… to breathe in the fall air and deliberately alter my walking path to crunch some leaves along the way.

It has been a beautiful, breathtaking, colorful fall this year, even now that the leaves have fallen down.

Trees On Fire

Must I admit it? Okay, I have been a dangerous driver of late. I cannot help staring at the fall foliage this year. Since I moved to mid-Ohio, the trees have been less than spectacular, especially the last 5-8 years or so. But maybe because we have had so much rain this summer… maybe because of some early in the season bone-chilling nights… maybe just because it’s 2009… but this year the trees are on fire!


I will pass them on the highway and look for perfect photo opportunities, and yet I am unable to pull over and take the photo (lest I be standing in the middle of the highway during rush hour traffic). The colors this fall are just breathtaking… fiery orange, red, gold, burgundy, rust and yellow. So many of the trees are interspersed with pines, and those dark greens just set the fall foliage colors off perfectly.


I can’t keep my eyes off of them. Just simply a beautiful fall this year.


If anyone else is on the same roads as I am… keep an eye out for me, because one of my eyes (at least) is on the trees. At least until the leaves fall…