Enjoying Fall Colors

It was a very nice day last week.  I came home for lunch and we decided to have coffee outside on the front porch in the rocking chairs.  We sipped our coffee, waved at people as they passed by on the road.  I wish that I could have captured the event on video and zoomed in on it, but I didn't.  So, you'll have to use your imagination.  In the photo below, I captured "Fall" in our neck of the woods.

If you had an eagle eye, you could see that leaves were falling out of the pecan trees.  Lots of leaves.  As the wind continued to blow, a lazy stream of leaves fell slowly, but steadily toward the ground.  Those leaves did their duty all spring, photosynthesizing, providing shade, and now their work was done - almost.

I suggested to the wifey that we walk out and check the mail.  I walked out barefooted.  It was nice to feel the cool earth beneath my feet and feel the crunch of fall leaves under me.  I don't know what it is about Fall, but it is as if you can just look out and tell that there is not as much humidity in the air.  The air is crisp.  The sky is blue.  The sunshine is brilliant.  Life is good.

The leaves were beginning to gather on the ground beneath the trees.  Tricia reminded me of when the kids were little and I'd rake up the leaves in great big piles and the kids would run and jump in them.  It was great fun for them.  Simple things like a pile of leaves or an empty cardboard box can sometimes provide more entertainment that costly gifts.

These leaves won't be raked and bagged up.  Instead, I just mow them.  They compost into the lawn.  That's why I said their work was almost done.  The leaves will fertilize the St. Augustine grass under the trees and hopefully provide some fertility that will yield a good pecan crop again next year.

Right outside the back door is another pecan tree.  It yields bigger pecans than the ones in the front and they are easy to shell.  We used to call pecans like this, "paper shell pecans."  While the trees in the front yard have brown leaves that are falling or mostly fallen, this tree has leaves that are still hanging on the tree and are yellow.

I think it is a beautiful color.  We have friends that just got back from a trip to New England for two months.  They went as far north as Maine and said that they hit the Fall colors at their peak in North Carolina.  This pecan tree right here in south Louisiana ain't so bad, though.

I liked the way the sunlight filtered through the leaves, highlighting the yellow against the blue sky.

But alas, my coffee cup was empty and it was time to go back to work.  Glad I got a chance to see Fall take place, because it doesn't take long.  If you aren't paying attention, this is what the tree will look like in just a skinny minute:

Barren and sad until spring.