Autumn is swiftly drawing to a close here in Texas. Before the season ends, I wanted to do a post on the wonderful aspects of fall. I’ve especially enjoyed this one because the ragweed season ended a bit early, allowing me the freedom to move outdoors.
Here our Shumard Red Oak is silhouetted against a sky brushed with alto cumulus.
After the first really cold cold front, the chlorophyll in the leaves start to die, revealing the true color, bright red in this instance. What’s interesting about this type of tree is that when the leaves bud, they come in red, not green. The green comes later as the leaves mature.
Many birds are flocking in from the north, and I’ve spotted whole flocks foraging for food in preparation for the winter. Here is a photo of Mrs. Cardinal in one of our redbud trees.
Can you spot Mr. Cardinal in this photos?
As always, we are overstocked with mockingbirds.
I took my first pictures of bluejays last week. Suddenly there seem to be a lot around here. They really are big, noisy birds.
This lovely mixed sky of alto cumulus and cirrus clouds was what greeted me Thanksgiving morning.
Our Yaupon holly is ripe with bitter berries that look far better than they taste.
The beautiful pink flowers of the redbud trees last March have turned into thin brown seed pods, bearing the promise of a new generation.
On sunny days, my cat prefers to lounge outside as opposed to his kitty corner in the garage. We have quite a few bright days in the fall. Despite the cold, I would contest that the days with the greatest sunlight occur in the fall and winter in Texas.
Some of the reason why we have such bright days in the fall and winter is due to the seasonal clouds. In the spring and summer, we tend to have high towering cumulus that eventually swell into storms - these effectively block light. In the fall and winter, when we don’t have layers of stratus bringing rain, ice and snow, we have high altitude cirrus clouds, and cirrus clouds are brilliant reflectors of light. Here in this photo, you’ll notice a bright spot to the right of the sun - a sun dog - cause by the intense reflection of the sunlight by the trillions of ice crystals in these clouds.
Days that aren’t sunny are blanketed by layers of alto stratus and stratus clouds.
My house, surrounded by the rich autumn colors and a lowering sky just ere a cold front.
The sky just before the storm swept down from the north west.
Ode to the West Wind
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence -stricken multitudes: O thou
Who chaoriotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odors plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!
Thou on whose stream, ‘mid the steep sky’s commotion,
Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,
Angels of rain and lightening: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine aery surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith’s height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of thy vast sepulcher,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapors, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fair, and hail will burst: oh, hear!
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave’s intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice and suddenly grow grey with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: oh, hear!
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skyey speed
Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne’er have striven
As this with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee: tameless and swift and proud.
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Shelley
