When Every Leaf is a Flower

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

I've only made a couple of brief pit stops at home over the past two months. I've been spending most of my time at Frank's and some of that time up north as the search for a home continues. On one of my stops at home, I snapped a number of foliage and other photos. I hope you enjoy them.



Behind the houses across the street from my own is where I find these trees, along the park path. They look lovely in any season but they're particularly pleasing to the eye in autumn.





Moving along the path, a bit closer toward home, the previous trees are behind me, and this is the view that Benny and I take in.





I like this view even better.





The dam usually attracts a fair number of ducks, geese, and the occasional heron, kingfisher and mink but just the mallards were hanging around on this day.





Though none were around at this time, this is a favourite spot for the herons. The Great Blue, Night and Green - they all visit whenever the water is not frozen over.





Frank and I couldn't help noticing that some maples are this brilliant yellow while others turn traditional (at least in terms of our own nation's flag) scarlet. We figure it's probably dependent on the kind of maple. Frank has a Red Maple which looks reddish in the spring, mostly green in summer and turns brown before losing its leaves in the fall. We'd love to have one that turns bright red in autumn.





This little red squirrel was watching me closely as I wandered around snapping photos.





Most of the Queen Anne's Lace have closed up shop for the winter. They still look quite pretty to me.





But there is the occasional rebel still clinging to summer.





One of my favourite autumn treats is the Spindle berry. It spends all summer as a green bud, growing slowly, fading into the surrounding foliage. When autumn arrives, it sports this brilliant pink colour just as some of the leaves begin turn red. The bud eventually splits open to reveal a vibrant orange seed. When all of the other colours of summer are fading, this wonderful plant comes into its own. The colours slowly fade throughout winter but they still offer a colourful contrast to snow well into the season.





Here's a small cluster of them after a rainfall.





Someone was tossing apple bits to the duck and these sweet mallard was enjoying hers very much. The peel almost makes her appear to be sticking her tongue out at us.





Shortly after a rainfall, browning leaves glisten in the newly-emerged sun.




Bright red Hawthorn berries contrast nicely against the orange leaves behind it.

More coming up sometime soonish.

A Summer's Day

Yesterday's "Once in a Blue Moon" was one of my rare posts which was only up at the top of the heap for one day before moving on to this, the next post. If you didn't happen to catch it and would like to see it, you can click on "previous post" at the end of this page.

I have a sneaking suspicion that I'll be posting summer photos well into autumn. I have a lot of them and my posting schedule has been lagging recently. I'll do my best to keep up - starting with the images below.

Although I've titled this post A Summer's Day, the photos were not snapped within the same 24 hour period. Some are not even from the same week. Or month. Still, they depict a summer's day and that's all I'm going to say about that.




There's a volunteer-attended butterfly garden at my nearby park. This lovely orange flower greeted the morning sun through much of the summer.





A pair of purple thistles strut their colourful stuff.






The colour on this one is just emerging but it's enough to attract this cabbage white butterfly.






Yet another prickly plant catching a few shaded rays.






This squirrel found something interesting to munch on. He scarcely looked up when I snapped this shot.






I don't know about you, but when I lean in toward this photo, I feel like the spikes of this flower are actually moving - 3D-style.






And while you probably already think I'm a bit nuts, do you see a hag's face in the blooms of this Queen Anne's Lace? That gap near the bottom would be her mouth and the protrusion in the middle, her nose? No? Okay, never mind. ;)





A Green Heron takes flight. You can't see much green in this fellow but some of his feathers have a definite teal green sheen to them in certain light.





Well how about that! I do have a shot of him in just that right light. You can see the green in his wing, tail and a bit in his face.


 


As the day and summer progressed, I enjoyed watching the groups of ducklings grow. This was taken in early July but by now, I can no longer tell the young from their parents. I wonder if this guy is dreaming of the day when he too, will have feathers as large as the one floating beside him.





A wander at dusk at the early part of the season. I looked up just in time to see a Great Blue Heron fly off into the the twilight-painted sky.





A robin watches the night fall from atop the branches of a pine tree.

More photos in a few days.

Summer, Don't Go!

Below are a few summer photos and quotes.


Then followed that beautiful season... Summer....
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow




Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don't they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers.
~ Ray Bradbury




And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald




Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.
~ Henry James




It was a splendid summer morning and it seemed as if nothing could go wrong.
~ John Cheever




In summer, the song sings itself.
~ William Carlos Williams




Of all the wonders of nature, a tree in summer is perhaps the most remarkable; with the possible exception of a moose singing ''Embraceable You'' in spats.
~ Woody Allen




How sweet I roamed from field to field, and tasted all the summer's pride.
~ William Blake




Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.
~ John Lubbock




Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.
~ Russel Baker




A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken.
~ James Dent




These are the days of the endless summer
These are the days, the time is now
There is no past, there’s only future
There’s only here, there’s only now.
~ Van Morrison

More in a few days!

Like a Walk in the Park

It's been ages since we've taken a walk around the pond path together. There's some mulled apple cider by the door - the spiced rum is optional. Please grab a cup and join me.

My own front yard offers this sedum (Autumn Joy) bloom in its early, pink stages of opening.

It must have rained earlier. These droplets on a broad leaf sure do catch the eye.

More proof of the recent rain.

This is my favourite spot at my local park and I've photographed it often. The subtle changes of autumn have begun to take place. Look closely to the right of the tree roots and you'll see Mr. Blue fishing the shore.

A Queen Ann's Lace, closed up tight. Lots of tiny seeds adorn each little bloom.

Here's how it looked wide open, in full bloom. Notice the tiny red flower in the center? My bloggy pal Linda pointed that out to me in one of her earlier blog posts. I never noticed the red petals before and now I look for it every time. Thanks, Linda!

And last, but not least, one of my favourite late summer to early autumn flowers - the wild chicory. Such a pretty shade of blue.

I hope you enjoyed the walk. Let's do it again sometime soon.

This is a scheduled post. In all reality, I didn't just walk around the pond because Frank and I are up at the cottage for a few days for one last visit, this year. Still, feel free to help yourself to the cider. It's virtually a bottomless cup.

Commonalities

Something is happening to my summer. It's beginning to fade despite my best effort to make it last forever. Ah well the beauty of it all is that it will be back again next year. And even better, it's not quite over yet. I hope you enjoy the following photos taken over the last few weeks.

Tennis anyone? OK, so it's not a tennis racquet but rather a dollar store piece meant for badminton. There it sat beside a citronella candle, probably from the same store. And there I sat with my camera in hand. What else was I to do but snap a shot?

Not to give the impression that dollar stores get all of our business but they really do come in handy sometimes. I'm guessing that these colourful bottles of bubbles were purchased there too. It's all a guess because everything in these first two photos was found at Frank's place and really, where else are you going to buy toy racquets, anti-mosquito candles and bubbles for Benny to chase and burst?

I can't remember where we were driving to or from on this day, but the rain had begun, and I liked the way it streamed down the windshield in small rivulets, allowing a peek at the cars' lights, like little bubbles ahead of us. The window was a lot clearer than it appears. I was trying to focus on the lights and water droplets. Can you tell it was a hot, muggy kind of rain?

Where there's rain, there are puddles. This is one I tend to photograph fairly often. It's not as large as I've seen it before. Then again we'd not have very much rain at this point in the summer. Don't puddles make you want to return to your childhood just for a moment so that you can stomp around in them without looking like the neighbourhood loon?

This umbrella wasn't made for rain. It's the kind you latch onto the arm of a chair so you can sit in the hot sunshine and still have some shade. Colourful, isn't it?

Speaking of that, when I snapped this shot of a Queen Anne's Lace, I thought that the underside of it kind of resembled the inside of an umbrella. If you ever pull one of these flowers out by the roots, make sure you give it a good sniff. It's related to the carrot family and the root smells just like carrots. Did you know that?

And finally, since we're enjoying the flowers, here's a photo which I meant to include with the previous "purple" post but I forgot. Milkweed grows all around the field near Frank's place and it does its best to attract Monarch butterflies. It does a pretty good job of it too. Had you noticed that up until now, I've ended every photo description with a question?

How about now?