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“Now Autumn’s fire burns slowly along the woods and day by day the dead leaves fall and melt”.
William Allingham
Autumn (Fall) is a time to walk and to talk and to think – and to start to make plans.
It is also a time to take photos of nature’s bounty:
Took a while getting here this year – but after the snow, rain, hail, winds, damp, grey skies and general lacklustre demeanor – Spring is finally putting in an appearance. Mother Nature – who has been drumming her fingers on the counter-top for some weeks now – enquires frostily (seemed appropriate):
“What kept you”?
Cue the usual annual photos of Mother Nature doing what she does best…
I thought the gentle reader might appreciate a few more glimpses of autumnal hues – before everything fades to a wintery grey for the the next three months or so. Fall is glorious, though it is the season of which I am least fond. Winter serves a purpose but unless one likes to get out to play in the snow and ice it is not one that some folk – self included – find easy to love. Still – it does eventually give way to the spring and that is a very good thing.
Good grief! Here we are – already well into November. The Halloween decorations are coming down and the over-zealous have already started on Christmas…
Time for some soothing images of autumnal colours – to demonstrate what a beautiful world this is despite what we insist on inflicting upon it:
Time for some photos of plants growing in our garden. I know that I do this every year, but the garden is not the same from one year to the next so I don’t suppose that the images are either. Anyway – the nature of this journal is that there will always be something else along in a moment and there are no penalties for skipping ahead (I wanted there to be but couldn’t figure out how to do it!)…
The reason for my somewhat incredulous byline is that – no matter how much a part of it we all are – nature is still pretty much a riddle to me (wrapped inside a mystery etc, etc)… Take this Camellia for example. Some seasons back (maybe four or five) I pruned it back a little in the early spring. It was probably not the best time of year for such a treatment, but I was not too severe on the shrub; merely trying to persuade it not to stomp all over the ‘lesser’ plants around it.
The Camellia clearly took umbrage and refused to flower at all in any of the succeeding years – with the exception of the odd desultory bloom once in a while. This year – well, take a look for yourself:
Maybe I will post an update when all those buds burst into bloom.
…from a lost season (see previous post).
Whatever I personally feel about this time of year (and of the month of November in particular) there is no denying that there are some pretty images to be captured. Being a sharing kind of guy I always like to pass such things on to the gentle reader (or viewer!).
These are quite seasonal:
…and that mountain is still visible (though by no means so every day!)…
There is good, if somewhat nippy, walking to be done – in Centennial Park for instance:
“Two of us wearing raincoats
Standing solo in the sun
You and me chasing paper
Getting nowhere
On our way back home”
Lennon/MacCartney
The other day I was in Sidney, engaged upon the purchase of some comestibles. On returning to the Lexus – the which I had parked under a small tree at the far extent of the car park – I observed that a murder was in progress. A murder of crows, that is…
No sooner than I had mounted the vehicle and fired up the big V8 than one of their number flapped lazily down and took up residence on the bonnet (hood!). He looked me in the eye as a sort of challenge and let it be known that he felt disinclined to move even when I revved the engine a little. Had I not started to reverse gently out of the parking bay I think he might well just have stayed there.
Cheeky bu**er!
Not so many posts ago I was grumbling about the weather here in BC and mourning the loss of a number of shrubs and other erstwhile growing things in our garden. I have a feeling – in fact – that I visited the theme in more than one post, the which only goes to show just how poorly the climate has treated us thus far this year (now that I put it like that, of course, there is a rapid light-bulb moment as the realisation strikes that this maltreatment is undoubtedly mutual and indeed causal. What goes around etc, etc…).
Anyway, the weather has perked up just a tad (with the exception of today – bah!) and I have spent considerable amounts of time (and not a little cash on new rhododendrons, hydrangeas, viburnums and a plethora of hostas) trying to cajole what was left of the garden into some sort of shape; to make it look at least a little bit cared for. As it turns out I can still only make a plea for a small percentage of the credit for the turnaround that has occurred – nature herself seeming to rebound from the hard winter with considerable vigour regardless of my efforts.
Either way, I thought you might like to see some pictures of the improvements.
Many thanks are due to two good souls who have contributed in no small degree to this renaissance. A long-time and most dear friend furnished us with three gorgeous stone Bhuddas, the which needed a good home as a result of an impending move:
…and our good Glaswegian (but also long-time Canadian) horticulturalist friend not only provided much good advice but also graciously allowed us to make use of his wholesale discount at Island View Nursery.
Our most grateful thanks to both…
Ever since arriving in Canada (more than six years ago now) I have – twice a week – taken part in a fitness class for those over 55 years of age. I do not do so because I enjoy this particular form of exercise but because I am determined to keep everything going for as long as possible. If that means doing some work – so be it.
The majority of of the group are ladies, with whom – naturally – I now have reasonably good relationships. We often go for a coffee after the class, to the delightfully named “Fickle Fig” farm shop on the outskirts of Sidney. We sit outside around a huge table – for the (by now) usual COVID protection reasons.
Sometimes we are not alone. Sometimes the wildlife wants to join in – as with this cheeky chappie!
He – or she – doesn’t seem to care for coffee but does quite like the pastries (which, of course, I can’t eat).
He – or she – cared not a jot that I was taking pictures of him/her!
I found that I had too many photographs of the Fall leaves in Centennial Park in Saanichton to fit into a single post…
…so here are the rest of them.
That is one serious bunch of leaves!
Tags: Autumn, British Columbia, Fall, nature, Photo
“And all at once, summer collapsed into fall.”
Oscar Wilde
Should there be any doubts as to why Autumn is known as Fall here in North America, these images may well satisfy them.
They also provide an interesting illustration of the fact that – even when one is apparently walking through a forest predominantly comprising mixed conifers – there are always more maples present than appears to be the case at first (or even second) sight.
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