Fall Tanka – September 22, 2015

Summer. Gone so fast.
We wear long sleeves; we don’t swim.
No beach, no peaches.

We cursed your heat, but don’t feel
Hurt, summer; soon we’ll hate cold.

Spring?

(A belated and close-to-home response to last week’s Where’s My Backpack travel theme.)

Crocuses
Three months now, and its been so cold.
So much cold. We’re tired of cold.
Spring should come soon, or so we’re told
But it’s still cold. We’re tired of cold.
But maybe there’s hope, at last, today.
Flowers are a good sign, they say,
Though crocuses bloom even when it’s cold.

Thursday Haiku, November 14, 2013

November, by the woman who loves spring

Air burns cold. Dark comes
soon, stays long. Waiting – green
sprouts, soft air. Waiting.

Festival of Leaves: Week 7

Back after missing a week, and how the world has changed!

When I first discovered Festival of Leaves, it still looked almost like summer around here. That was then.

The last maple leaf of fall, hiding against its background of pine needles.

Some nice yellows…

…and some bright reds.

The willow oak that was so determined to stay green? It’s showing a lot of yellow now.

Even so, there are still some green leaves to see. And some snow. Yes, that’s what the white streaks across the tree trunk are. 😦 It didn’t amount to anything, but it’s ominous.

Festival of Leaves, October 27, 2013

My first “real” Festival of Leaves post went up a week ago yesterday. For the fifth week of the Festival, let’s see how my part of the world has changed in a week…

This tree is beginning to change color – the top is red-orange, but the lower leaves are still green.

The maple tree from last week’s post is mostly orange, and starting to shed leaves noticeably.

This pin oak has largely given up for the winter. It’s nearly bare, and the remaining leaves are all a dull tan.

But last week’s willow oak, growing about forty feet from the pin oak, is still nearly as green as the first time you saw it.

Here comes the sun

…at 7:40 this morning, flaming and glowing, too bright to look at directly.

The days keep getting shorter.

Festival of Leaves, October 19, 2013

(My second Festival of Leaves post for the fourth week of the Festival – tracking what the world looks like as winter stalks closer and closer.) How far into fall are we, here a few miles east of Philadelphia?

Some trees are starting to get serious about turning color…

…while others are holding on to their summer green.

Strange day

Low gray clouds from horizon to horizon (not that there’s anything unusual about that, this winter). A little snow falling, so fine that mostly all you can see is movement in the air without being able to make out what is moving.

And somewhere overhead, in or above the clouds, a vast noise, many geese calling and calling so that the world echoes with their honking.

Small stone 6: Weather forecast

Snow showers, they told us yesterday. Expect an illusion, the look of something falling, something that vanishes as if it never was.

Midnight and snow

All evening and all night flecks of whiteness dropped through the air. They couldn’t resist us, our houses and yards and streets, our world. They wanted to stay. So they did.

Lavender in the Snow

The sun set last night on faded winter beige. It rose today on a different world, bleached to white, punctuated by black stones and gray-green lavender. Winter’s here.

100 Steps: Winter in the park

Another entry in the 100 Steps series started by Myfanwy Hart, taken in the park near my home –

There was a surprising amount of noise coming from these bushy weeds, or weedy bushes.

By approaching slowly and quietly, I was able to spot this little fellow as he caught his breath. There were lots of other similar birds sheltering or feeding, but they stayed in motion or out of sight.

A reminder of warmer days, high in the bare branches.

These plants have a very different palette from my first picture, a wintry grey-white-brown look. (And apparently they’re less attractive to small birds.)

Still, there’s nothing wrong with a few accents in red!