The Fall Leaves – Not Much of a Show This Year
If you’ve followed any of my posts, then you know I love fall. It’s my favorite season of the year – the shortening days, the cool evenings, frosty mornings – and the beautiful fall colors.
Unfortunately, I’m sorely missing the last part of my autumn favorites list this year. The fall foliage color was supposed to peak locally the week of October 22nd, but if you’ll recall we were still having days in the 80-degree range in mid-October, and that coupled with the fact that we’ve gotten so much rain this year meant the trees just didn’t seem to know what season it was supposed to be.
It wasn’t just in my part of the country, either. I took a trip to western New York a few weeks ago (on a college visit with my daughter), and the drive through country that should have been alive with fall colors was just a motley collection of greens and other summer hues. Only here and there was there even an inkling of the fiery reds, flaming oranges, and brilliant yellows that should have been dominating the landscape.
While the colors have made a brief appearance over the last week, it’s nowhere near the display that I have come to expect from the fall season. The trees have barely begun to change and the fall winds from the west are already ripping them from the canopies to leave bare branches that are preparing for the coming winter months. The cherry trees in front of my house are usually a brilliant pale yellow-orange in the fall, but this year? They are a shadow of their usual autumn glory and have lost over 75% of their leaves in the past 48 hours due to the winds. Also, yet another round of rain has pulled down even more, robbing me of the satisfying crunch and simple pleasure of walking over them as they litter my car, street, and the sidewalk. They are just a wet, weakly-colored mess that I’m constantly dragging into the house on the bottom of my shoes.
It’s kind of depressing.
Oh well, there’s always next year – and on the bright side? I got an extra hour of sleep this past Sunday morning when we changed the clocks back to Standard Time.
One thought on “The Fall Leaves – Not Much of a Show This Year”
The few trees showing color really stand out but I agree, Fall is really muted this year. If you believe in such predictions the wooley worms are totally black this year which is supposed to mean a bad winter.