Autumn

This year seems to have been an unusually lovely fall season.  The colors seemed to start a little earlier, and have lasted longer than our usual ten minutes.  And they seem to have been more vibrant.  I have loved it.

This tree was even more stunning yesterday before it lost so many leaves.

And this beauty leads to this......

                   FUN!



One of my favorite fall activities is scuffling through the leaves.

And this was just a collection of leaves in a random curb that I happened to stop at.  These leaves are so deep it is difficult to see that those are my shoes buried in them.



And of course all those leaves will inevitably lead to the utilization of this tool.  Our trusty rake.

The leaves on our big old cottonwood trees are still mostly green.  Pretty soon they'll turn yellow and then one day, in the space of about four hours, 90% of the leaves will all drop off the branches, it will look like leaf snow.

And then The Husband and I will spend a couple afternoons (usually this happens around Thanksgiving) out in our sweatshirts and work gloves raking and bagging and more raking and bagging while we chat and commiserate about our aching muscles.

And it will be, for a minute, a bit of heaven on earth.  I hope in the real heaven we'll remember how much we loved the autumn.  And if I'm lucky, I'll find some leaves in a curb to shuffle through.