Late Fall has Suddenly Arrived

Thanks in large part to a four-day wet and windy weekend only one week after Thanksgiving, the leaves have mostly fallen, and the trees are looking stark against the sky, just like mid-November.


I flip through my pictures of 10 days ago, and they are brilliant in red, orange, and bright yellows. This morning's shots are black or grey against a stark blue sky. One of the big changes in the seasons over the year has just occurred.


You can pick out the trees easily by their branching and twig patterns, the sharp spikes of the young white ash trees reaching for the sky close together, the coarse branches of the older ash trees, the occasional poplar that still has some yellow leaves. I shudder to think what will happen if we get the Emerald Ash Borer up here; 80% of the younger trees in this landscape are white ash saplings I think.

Along one of the fencerows are a cluster of big symmetrical maples that were covered in orange only a week ago; it's the maples that add the most colour to the fall landscape - for a fleeting 2 or 3 weeks.


Even down in the swamp, the leaves are all gone, the red and silver maple standing in a sea of green duckweed. Time to get the fall chores done before the first snow comes!

Thanksgiving Weekend was Brilliant!

Well, it's been far too nice weather to be huddled over a computer indoors. Been just too busy enjoying being outside to think of blogging! Thanksgiving weekend was brilliant, brilliant colours, and brilliant weather. The colours seemed to be just at their peak, and the weather let people get out and enjoy them.

Maple and oak leaves turned bright red and orange, while the sumach just turned brilliant red. Seeing them early in the morning with the sun shining through them shows off the colour best - that magic hour of early morning sun for outdoor photography.

Got lots of work done outdoors too, while the weather was so good. Went hiking, and ate lots of turkey. Now the sun has ended, and we're into several days of cooler wet weather, a much better time to be indoors. And most of the leaves have suddenly fallen in the rain; the bright Thanksgiving colours were just one of those ephemeral beauties of nature.

Praying Mantis

Before we had this crazy weekend of cold, windy and then rainy wet weather for 3 days, I spotted a praying mantis in the garden. It's always been one of my favourite insects - perhaps because it's one that as a young child I could actually catch in my fingers.
It was crawling through the garden, and as I chased it with my camera lens it climbed up a bush, where it hung upside down on the reddish leaves for awhile before moving on to sit on a big rock. It's a predator of other insects, so its a beneficial one to have in your garden. I was glad to see it around.

White Pines and their Needles

This is the time of year that the white pines lose their inner needles - the needles that grew last year. While the pines have looked green all summer, now they're green on the outside and golden yellow on the inner branches. In a few weeks the inner golden needles will fall off, and the pines will be back to green.



I was once asked by a worried homeowner who saw the golden needles in the fall what disease his white pines had, and what could he do about it. Before that I hadn't been aware myself that the needles of white pine trees are held on the branches for about 18 months. All the needles now turning colour are the needles on branches that started growing a year and a half ago.



Just one of the many interesting patterns you can see in nature.

Fall Colours are Suddenly Here

Suddenly, after a few cold nights, and noticeably shorter days, fall colours are appearing in the trees. Young silver and sugar maples are one of the earliest to turn, and among the brightest orange or red. This is a young silver maple that we planted in our meadow.

One of my favourites is the sumach. Growing in dense large clumps that shade out anything else, it forms bright red masses of compound leaves like this one. A few branches will turn red first, and then slowly the rest of the sumachs turn til they're a bright red feature in the landscape for a week or two.

The large round heart-shaped leaves of the basswood turn yellow. Young saplings, like this one, turn before the mature trees do. Together all these leaves paint the trees in a burst of colour before the leaves finally drop and summer ends.

It's Fall in the Garden

It's fall in the garden, and the last few bright plants from the summer are rapidly disappearing. With the colder temperatures (and a very long rain all day today), the garden will soon be going to sleep, while we look forward for 6 long months to next spring.


This rather weird looking flower has huge leaves, with a slight tinge of purple to them, and sports these bedraggled looked but bright orange-yellow blossoms at the end of the summer. It's called Ligularia, and it does add some interesting colour and texture to the garden.

These are the bright red blossoms of scarlet runner beans no less! They're steadily being replaced with the beans themselves now, 8" or more long, and nearly 1" wide.

And the best remaining flowers in the garden are the brown-eyed susans, a large circle of them around a great big limestone boulder that sits in the middle of our yard.

Canoeing in the North

Well, it's not the Beaver Valley, but it is a sign of the seasons, at least for me - time for the annual canoe trip. This year we went to The Massassauga Provincial Park, an amazing canoeing area just sound of Parry Sound, on the east side of Georgian Bay. Since the scenery was so spectacular, I thought I'd just share a few photos.

Northern Lakes -White Pine and the Precambrian Shield

Beautiful September Days

Exploring the corners

Rattler - A Massassauga

The Giant Snapper Comes to Visit

Dawn on Clear Lake

Last Morning - Spider Lake