I spent much of October doing yardwork on the Ranch. On the 8th, 19th, 21st and 22nd of the month I was fortunate to have practically ideal weather conditions; temperatures in the 70s, light winds, golden sunlight and brilliant autumnal foliage. The combination of bright sunlight and vibrant leaves inspired me to document the scenery. Plus, the photography gave me a breather from monotonous hedge & bush trimming and the carting away of nearly 900 black walnuts (yes, I counted). My attempts to capture leaf luminosity with the sun as backlight met with more or less success.
I popped for a new roof this year. Green is the third different roof color on the Ranch (first gray in 1962 then black in 1989) and is a better compliment to its forest setting.
This photo of the red maple leaf on the driveway is for my Canadian friends.
Pro tip: When you live in a forest, outsource your leaf removal.
Spot the bug sunning himself on the leaf. No, that's not a challenge. It's an observation. Spot is the bug's name. I asked.
On the 22nd of October passing clouds provided me the opportunity to capture the same scene in different contrasts.
Leaves scattered about the lawn in the side yard under passing cloud cover (above), and then 15 seconds later.....
.....Pow! Bright sunlight.
A few years ago a red oak sapling materialized in the back yard among a grove of dying ash trees (#emeraldashborer). I removed the ash trees, a painful thing for a baseball fan, to provide more space for the red oak to thrive. So far, so good.
The first year that the red oak appeared its leaves blazed a vivid red in the fall. Over the course of the the next few years its autumnal hue was closer to brown than red on the color spectrum. This year saw a return to a deeper red.
Late last year I had the last of the mature ash trees removed from the ranch. It was sad to see the ash trees removed. In the earliest days of autumn, the uppermost leaves first turned purple before the whole tree progressively turned red then yellow. Reliably it was the best fall foliage performance in my yard each season. In place of the ash tree along the front walk, I planted a red oak sapling that also displayed an attractive red tint this fall (not photographed).
