October 29, 2015
The autumn landscape here in Kentucky has taken on the vivid golds, oranges, reds, and browns of the season. The remnants of all the beautiful flowering plants of spring and summer in my gardens spark lovely memories, and unfortunately, they are just memories. After the morning shower, amidst the dying foliage of those plants, the blossom of the red rose above beckoned to this lone honeybee.
Some of the nasturtiums escaped the hard frost a few nights ago, but most have succumbed to the frostbite. A couple of weeks ago, I was gazing out at the nasturtiums and enjoying their bright little faces. Contemplating next spring, I decided there need to be more of these little flowers in my gardens. They are so pretty!
The red maple is beginning to show it’s lovely red color. The green of the woods behind the house will soon be a blanket of yellow and gold colored trees, so the red of this maple will be a welcome contrast if there are any left after the rain. The leaves on the crabapple are completely gone and the birds are enjoying the little crabapples.
We had a flock of birds that visited the backyard early the other day. It wasn’t a flock of one particular kind of bird, though. There were so many kinds, cardinals, some gray birds with tufts on their heads. Maybe they were the tufted titmouse birds. There were some dark-eyed juncos, and I even saw a blue jay. Some enjoyed the bird bath. Most were eating from the crabapple, but a few were dining on the sunflower seeds in the cup and saucer feeder, which I made earlier this summer. A few juncos were eating the seeds that had fallen to the ground around the feeder. The wind came up and they disappeared almost as quickly as they came, but I did manage to capture this little junco.
The river birch in the front yard is dropping yellow leaves en masse! Well, it is a really big tree! The water fountain seems to catch a lot of the leaves and the yellow birch leaves are scattered around it like confetti.
After the rain, rain, and more rain, the sun broke through and this beautiful rainbow appeared in the sky. What a glorious end to the rainy weather and a beautiful sky to crown the autumn landscape!
