dimanche 17 octobre 2010

Farewell

Winter is just around the corner, but before going to sleep our trees bid us a colourfull farewell.  Under a cloudy sky the colours are less brilliant and I guess it fits the mood for the departure of summer and the transition to winter.




Another week or so and no leaves will be left save for picking up and sending to compost.  Our city sets aside four Mondays, the last two in October and the first two in November, when we can put our green residues in clear recyclable plastic bags to be picked up by our recycling trucks.  We usually have about 20 bags full of leaves.  Maybe a little less this year, our backyard neighbour has, last fall, cut down a huge apple tree that was not producing anymore...but leaves to shed mostly in our yard because most branches were overhanging our yard.
 
Already there is a leafy rug under the maple tree and it will get thicker until no more leaves are left up there.
Across the boulevard some trees are already barren as may be seen in the next picture.
Posted by Picasa

23 commentaires:

  1. Paul, you're becoming poetic with each entry! We are still green all around;a few weeks from now, and we too shall be blessed with goodbye hues.

    RépondreSupprimer
  2. Fall is a season most propitious for poetry although I do not consider myself a poet I do have my sentimental moments.

    RépondreSupprimer
  3. I would as leaf put our leaves in our own composter than send them elsewhere. Or use them to shelter rose bushes. So I shall save them here, as readying food for next spring's garden.

    RépondreSupprimer
  4. All fine Rob-bear if you have a garden which we do not and it is much better to send them to the municipal composting center where the compost is redistributed every spring for free to those who have some use for it.
    The alternative is to send them to the landfill.

    RépondreSupprimer
  5. We are a couple of weeks behind you of course, so the local leaf collection starts in November and runs through year's end. It's actually astonishing how many years my best plan has been to wait and rake on Christmas Day, since that is one of my two least favorite days of the year and I always need something to do.

    Our colors lean to bright yellow and melony oranges. Only the dogwoods, which are the state tree, go a really vivid red.

    RépondreSupprimer
  6. Raking leaves on Christmas day? At that time our unraked leaves are usually a foot or two under snow.

    RépondreSupprimer
  7. Anche noi siamo indietro di varie settimane. Ma nessun romano ricicla le foglie, e spesso nemmeno riclicla altre cose. Senso della collettività? Scarso.

    RépondreSupprimer
  8. Very beautiful images. I love your place. It seems so peaceful.

    RépondreSupprimer
  9. Recycling over here is a priority, within the next 5 years our municipalities will have to recycle 60% or our refuse.
    The pictures were taken on a Sunday morning. On weekdays from 600 to 1000 and 1500 to 1830 it is quite something else.

    RépondreSupprimer
  10. You are, indeed, poetic in this post, Paul.

    You have reminded me that fall was the favorite season of Russia's greatest poet, Alexander Pushkin.

    He famously refers to the appeal of fall as the charm of a "consumptive maiden". It has always stayed with me.

    RépondreSupprimer
  11. "A consumptive maiden"? I seem to recall, Jenny, that in the last phases of tuberculosis people looked healthy with a pinkish complexion that was the harbinger of death,
    Thank God that Fall only announces a dormant period to be follwed by Spring's wake up call.

    RépondreSupprimer
  12. Perhaps the poignancy of a beauty that will soon cease to be?

    RépondreSupprimer
  13. I would agree with your comment, Jenny. a very apt wording.

    RépondreSupprimer
  14. No real autumn down here. I love autumn colors and the cooler weather, and I enjoy your pictures.

    RépondreSupprimer
  15. The burnished-coloured leaves accumulating on the ground outside my home, and your paean to Autumn are a reminder to me that I must once again take out my Vivaldi CDs and play them.

    Whenever I hear Vivaldi, regardless of time of year and whether its the Four Seasons or any others of his compositions, I think always of the colours of Autumn and the crunchy sound of fallen leaves beneath my feet as I walk through parks and along trails in the dappled sunlight of brilliant Autumn afternoons.

    RépondreSupprimer
  16. Lovely, Philippe.
    I shall pull Vivaldi out as well.
    Paul,
    Soon it will be dark at both 5am and 5pm. I will miss the light, light of my favorite season.

    Your tree is ahead of mine here in the West. Our walnut, sycamore, and locust trees are still coated.

    Love the post! Cheri

    RépondreSupprimer
  17. It is dark up here till about 6 and it darkens at about 18:30 and getting darker at both ends ever later in the morning and earlier at night. Soon we will go back to Standard Time and then we will be in the dark.
    Vivaldi's Seasons are a delight to listen to regardless of the time of year. So peacefull, so relaxing and poetic. I have 4 or 5 albums of them by different artists or orchestras they range from very sirupy to almost energetic, but they all show how the same opus can be understood differently by by each artist or conductor.
    As the latins used to say:"Tot sensus quot capita".

    RépondreSupprimer
  18. Not many know that Vivaldi was a priest and had red hair.

    RépondreSupprimer
  19. Since his 200th anniversary and all the documentaries aired at ta that time can there be someone who does not know the red head priest? I eacall you even posted about it, Giovanni.

    RépondreSupprimer
  20. Did I? My memory is very bad it seems. And as you said, there's a time when we enter the Age of Repetition. In six months perhaps I will tell you once more he was a redhead priest. But maybe you'll have forgotten I had already said it twice and you’ll just add: I know.

    RépondreSupprimer
  21. Redheads the world over raised a glass, even if Vivaldi is not really a big favorite here. (I mean, way ahead of Metallica, but way behind Mahler and Schubert and Dvorak usw., in my living room anyway.)

    RépondreSupprimer
  22. Twenty bags sounds an awful lot of sweeping.
    Prevailing winds and the configuration of the neighbourhood seem to mean that most of the fallen leaves from round about end up in our garden.

    Still, it's good exercise for Glenys.

    RépondreSupprimer
  23. @Sledpress: Schubert and Dvorak are also well liked in our living room and as wake up music in our bedromm in the morning. Mahler...not really, Metallica is nowhere to be seen.
    @Richard: my daughters and grandson take care of leaves, my shoulders and back do not tolerate that type of exercize.
    And I repeat, that Glenys really deserved that poem of yours.

    RépondreSupprimer