Autumn Leaf Watch

Autumn is, hands-down, my favorite time of year! I've always loved the start of the school year. Getting a new school uniform, clean, white peter pan collars on the blouse. The smell of new books. Squeaky new shoes.

My birthday is in Autumn, and I always felt so honored that Our Lady's birthday was in the same month. My birthstone is the saphire, and when I was a little girl, I thought it made perfect sense that September should have Mary's favorite color in the month of blue, blue skies.

I lived outdoors as a child and I still remember being strangely excited on the first really crisp fall morning when the grass sparkled with frost and you could see your breath. And there were always plenty of crunchy, juicy, apples. Red and tart green, with perfect whiteness inside after you took a bite. And my brother, Greg, eating the entire apple, seeds and all, then chewing on the stem when he was done.

And the color... I LOVE THE COLOR! I grew up in the midatlantic and southeastern states (I'm a Navy brat), so came home from playing at dinnertime with pockets full of leaves in almost every hue you could imagine: apple red, maroon, rust, pink, gold, copper, lemon yellow, fiery orange, brown, burnt sienna, auburn, purple, even black... What treasure!

Now that we live in the Rocky Mountain region, our color selection is not so great, maybe, but what we have is spectacular! The brilliant, glowing gold of the aspen lighting up the sides of the mountains is breathtaking. And the colors close to home, though maybe not as remarkable for their environment, are a sweet and welcome change in our hills and valleys.

So, in the hopes that y'all (oops, my southern just slipped out...) love leaf watching, too, I'm going to try to regularly post some of the fall changes around this part of the country.

I'll post some pictures from our various wanderings. Then I'll keep a weekly record of the goings-on at the river and meadow at the corners of our yard. It'll be fun for us and keeping a record of our leaf watch gives us a good excuse to go wandering!

Here's a look at our travels over the last couple of days. I'll get some pics of the neighborhood before the end of the weekend. (Well, I'll try, anyway.)

On the road to Ouray. Not much leaf change yet here...


On the road to Telluride (over the hill and a different view of the same mountain, I think). Not much going on here yet, either.


The park in Ridgeway. Not a yellow leaf in sight.
Incidentally, this is where the "hanging scene" in True Grit was filmed. In fact, most, if not all of that movie was filmed around Ridgeway, Colorado. Imagine! John Wayne walked here!

Though you can see the leaves are all pretty green still down here, way up in the high country the leaves are already flaming; I'll try to get some pictures of that to show the difference altitude makes in the leaves' changing. We'll record the high and low temps, too, at least for here at our elevation. It'll be interesting to note how the temperatures, and their variation affects the color!