It’s been a particularly beautiful fall. There are people who study the science of it – colors are more or less vibrant due to the amount of rainfall and the variation between day and evening temperatures. The colors don’t always last. A storm with high winds can cut foliage season short. This year, everything fell into place. For more than a month, the trees glowed.
By the first week of November most of the leaves had turned brown and branches were bare. But, early in the morning, when doing barn chores, the Chinese beech trees, which never put on a show, looked like this:
I thought that those beech trees were like the last flourish of a fireworks event. But I was wrong. This coda was still to come:
What unexpected beauty have you seen in your neighborhood?
Well, they weren’t really unexpected but, the Cardinals, Blue Jays and Grey squirrels in the snow under my bird feeders. My bird feeder guest are what help to get me through the long winters, and of course, looking in on Hem Cam.
We don’t put out birdseed until bear season is over in December!
We have deer come to our feeders but, I think the bear are sleeping already.
Do you usually have snow this early?
How many bears do you get?
In England we expect our weather to follow yours a couple of weeks on, it does tend to do that quite often. (Never get the bears though!)
We do get a light snowfall this early, but the heavy snowfalls *usually* don’t occur until after the new year.
We just had our first snow (way way too early) and I still had roses on the rose bush on my lattice that surrounds my patio. So I had snow covered roses, a bright red male cardinal sitting in the snow covered rose bush branches.
I would have said pretty as a Christmas card but I’ve never seen a rose in a Christmas card. ;-)
I guess I won’t complain about the red tails if you’ve got bears. YIKES. Although we have bears in the Ozarks I suppose its only a matter of time before they arrive in the suburbs, after all the armadillos made to St Louis.
My guess is that the bears are there, but they’re still timid so you don’t see them. Yet.
Unfortunately, we were one of the ones who had the rain and high wind. Our trees were naked in short order. It made raking up leaves very ‘interesting’! :) So far there hasn’t been any unexpected beauty showing its face through the mud and rain. However, everything froze up this weekend and as I was sitting here typing, I noticed our first flock of Juncos has arrived. Beautiful, but expected. They are such cheerful perky little birds. *sigh* Winter is now officially here.
And why is it when there are high winds all the neighbors leaves end up in your yard. Things that make you go, hmmm?
And did you notice that none of them ever come over and offer to help rake up those leaves? We were nearly knee deep this year over most of an acre.
Bears here in Tennessee also. It is very cold here this week and the birds are hungry. I put the feeders out in the morning and bring them in at dusk. No leaving them out. Same here don’t leave them out until late Dec. although males will wander around all winter if it is mild. Beautiful yard scape. We had our first snow a couple weeks ago. Then we had a few days of 60’s. Tonight it will be 18*. Cuddle Alert!!!
Scooter has decided to stay tucked up in a ball until springtime.
I am in total agreement with Mr Scooter! 18* this am.
Scooter is a smart boy. I love it when the snow frosts the branches but I have to drive 200 miles up into the mountains to see that beauty. Yesterday morning’s red sky was a thing of beauty, I know, sailors beware, but it brought in the rain we are having today and more in the forecast for Friday. Much needed in CA and my garden. Another thing of beauty is my Henny Penny who has grown back her feathers and is her fluffy-cheeked and fluffy-butted gorgeous self again.
This afternoon I was astonished by a similarly radiant tree, rising from the backyard of a house across the street. It looked like a tall maple with gold and yellow leaves. I was awestruck- and a bit puzzled, since we don’t have that sort of thing in S. California.
Then I realized what I was looking at: two tall pine trees reflecting the golden sunset light-!
In Boise last week we got down to single digits and had about 8 inches of snow over two days. The snow was beautiful to see although I could have done without the lows….my beautiful surprise was an egg from my RIR, Ruby. Why her body decided it was time to start laying at this frigid time of year I don’t know but what a wonderful surprise to go out and find 1 long brown egg each day.