Fall Foliage

Note: I originally published a version of this post on The Sparrow Tree Square Blog on November 14, 2011. It is one of a handful of Sparrow Tree Square posts that I'm moving over here, where they better fit.

I love the fall, but where I live it's sometimes difficult to appreciate the beauty of autumn. I live in a shore town, where you're more likely to find sand and sea grass than oaks and maples. Still, there are a few areas around town that have some lovely deciduous trees, and this week it seems that they've reached their peak autumn color.

Yesterday, my mother and I took a walk around one of our more tree-filled locations, the neighborhood park. It was windy and grey out, which made the bright reds, oranges, and yellows of the trees really pop.

Here's a view of some trees that lining the main path that had turned scarlet:

This tree by the playground was orange and yellow:

You might be able to see some electrical wires slung over the lower branches of the tree above. That's because, starting Thanksgiving night, all of the trees and bushes in the park are lit with white, red, and green lights for the holidays. The display gets more and more elaborate with each passing year, and it takes a long time for the city workers to get all of the lights up. They've been working on it for a week or so now, and you can actually see the bulbs mixed in with the fall leaves of these trees, which resulted in an interesting juxtaposition of the autumn and Christmas seasons (click to enlarge):

 

I'm looking forward to taking my traditional Thanksgiving night walk around the park to see these trees aglow, but for right now I'm content just to see the display created by nature.