The Lord God Made It All

I swiped my father’s camera again!

Yesterday, Kathy and I walked over to Beaver Run Park.  It’s been about a month or so since I last walked the trails, and I was anxious to record the next chapter of autumn.  At the entrance to the trails, we were greeted by this magnificent Bois de Arc.  The ground underneath was littered with the decayed remnants of giant green seeds the size of softballs.  In the back of this park there are many Bois de Arc trees, but this one is by far the largest of those I have identified.  It’s big enough to make me wonder if it was planted by the Caddo Indians that lived here so long ago.

If Bois de Arcs are ancient sentenials to the Blackland Prairie, then the Eastern Red Cedars are the recent immigrants.  These beautiful trees are not native, but have naturalized throughout most of Texas.  They thrive on the tough ridges of limestone jutting out from the rich, black soil.  In fact, sometimes it is easy to tell where limestone ridges are because of the high concentration of cedars growing on them.  Some people dislike these trees; I love them.  I love the way they look, and I love the way they smell.  One of my ardent wishes is to see the cedar forests of western Canada.  Maybe when I finally get up to Alaska, I can take a side trip on the way there.

This next picture is of the trees that often grow around wet areas.  They are kind of willowy and I’ve never taken the trouble to identify them. (some scientist I am!).

Sometimes, I think the wooded areas of the Blackland Prairie resemble a kind of jungle.  Can you imagine waltzing through a place like this?

Or this?

Here is a limestone ridge.  Notice the cedars.

Now we come to the low area that used to be swampy.  I’m not sure why it is not, especially since we’ve just had the rainiest October in over a century.  I wonder if they diverted the waterflow.  Maybe all that tampering with the nearby Wilson Creek has something to do with it.

Everything is brilliant with color.

I believe this is a young Sycamore tree - one of my favorite native species.

Kathy on the overhang, looking down into the creek below.

This is looking north at the entrance of the creek (I don’t know what else to call it) into the park.

Can you spot the snapper?  He’s very hard to find.

Playing witht the camera settings, using a red filter.

I was trying to capture the rich, earthy colors of a Texas autumn.  We don’t get the pizazz of more northern states, but there is something subtle and beautiful about the browns and tans we have.

Next up, black and white!

Yup.  That’s my shadow.

 

 

Later on in the day, the sun went down with a fanfare.

I was so busy taking pictures of the clouds, I almost didn’t notice this little beauty - the last Black-Eyed Susan of the year.  I guess winter is really on its way.

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