Autumn has Almost Finished

.....many leaves have now finished tumbling to the ground. Don't be sad, it is Mother Nature's way of protecting her trees, and making sure that they survive the coming winter and beyond. If the leaves stayed on the trees during the winter months, and new ones didn't appear in the Spring, then our lovely trees would have no way of processing food for themselves. 

Autumn Fires

In the other gardens

And all up in the vale,

From the Autumn bonfires

See the smoke trail!

Pleasant summer over,

And all the summer flowers,

The red fire blazes,

The grey smoke  towers.

Sing a son of seasons!

Something bright in all!

Flowers in the summer,

Fires in the fall!

Robert Louis Stevenson

Late Autumn

Now Autumn's fires burn slowly o'er hills and dales.

Day by day leaves change colour.

Bright skies beckon, 



come quick, come see,

as the leaves drift earthwards, 

in glittering flurries of gold;

They're covering the sleeping flowers,

in a warm embrace,

and spreading leafy carpets,

throughout our woods.

And as we walk through them,

they chatter and crunch beneath our feet.

Shades of Red

October has turned our garden hydrangeas from their pale summery pink into a glorious shade of cerise. 

Normally they turn green with just a hint of cerise.

A myriad of coloured leaves are showing themselves off on the Maple trees

Leaves as rich in colour as red hot chillies

In October we have enjoyed a veritable feast of scarlet sunrises and sunsets.

A walk in our local beech wood reveals, that in the main, the trees are still hanging on to their summer greens. Two or three weeks more and they should be showing autumn shades of amber and gold.

Just a hint of what is still to come can be seen.

It was a Peaceful Autumn Day

 "The gilding of the Indian summer mellowed the pastures far and wide

The russet woods stood ripe to be stripped, but were yet full of leaf.

The purple of heath-bloom, faded but not withered, tinged the hills....

Fieldhead gardens bore the seal of gentle decay;

....its time of flowers and even of fruit was over."

from Shirley ~ Charlotte Brontë 

To Autumn

"skeins of mist like translucent silk, bending and unbending in the headlight tunnels"
John Geddes

"There is something incredibly nostalgic and significant about the annual cascade of autumn leaves" Joe L. Wheeler

"Autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons" Jim Bishop

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower" Albert Camus 

"I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house" 

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The American Notebooks

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness - John Keats

Arrived back from Turkey a few hours ago - thank you for all your kind comments on the previous post