Falling Leaves

The Leaves Are Green

The leaves are green, the nuts are brown,

They hang so high they won't come down.

Leave them alone till frosty weather,

Then they will all come down together.

Old Rhyme

Yesterday morning I went outside while it was still frosty out, and took some pictures. As I was snapping shots, it sounded like rain was coming down, but the sky was blue. It was because the leaves on the Tri color birch tree were falling so quickly, they sounded like rain falling. It was a beautiful sight, and a lovely sound to experience on one of the rare autumn mornings when the sky is blue and the air is crisp.

#120--My Tree--The Final Shot...Farewell

Farewell? a long farewell to all my greatness.

This is the state of man; today he puts forth

The tender leaves of hopes, tomorrow blossoms,

And bears his blushing honors thick upon him:

The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,

And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely

His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,

And then he falls as I do.

- William Shakespeare

#119--My Tree--Possessed by Snow

long long

The snow has possessed the mountains.

- Unknown

#118--My Tree--Early Morning Snow

There must be some nerve and heroism in our love, as of a winter morning.

- Henry David Thoreau

#117--My Tree--Bowing Down Its' Head

when the trees bow down their heads,The wind is passing by.

- Christina Georgina Rossetti

#116--My Tree--Covered in Ice and Snow

When the ice is covered with snow, I do not suspect the wealth under my feet;

that there is as good as a mine under me wherever I go.

How many pickerel are poised on easy fin fathoms below the loaded wain!

The revolution of the seasons must be a curious phenomenon to them.

At length the sun and wind brush aside their curtain, and they see the heavens again.

- Henry David Thoreau

#115--My Tree--The North Wind's Masonry

Come see the north wind’s masonry.

Out of an unseen quarry evermore

Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer

Curves his white bastions with projected roof

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

#113--My Tree--Icicles Stand Guard

“Honesty is like an icicle; if once it melts that is the end of it”.

American proverb

Take A Picture Tuesday--Snowy Winters

So....continuing with my new format....Tuesday is now Take A Picture Tuesday. I'll put some photos on my blog each Tuesday and talk a little about them. Some may be old, some may be new.

First, in honor of Inland Empire Girl's birthday tomorrow on January 9th, here is a picture of her and I during the big snow of 1968-1969. I saw one day on Huckleberries Online comparing this winter to that winter. I'm not sure this winter can compare quite yet. At least here in Kellogg. I was in kindergarten that year. See the picket fence in this picture. That was in the backyard. I remember the snow got so high that I could walk on the snow over the fence to the neighbors yard. Now, that was a lot of snow.

Inland Empire Girl and Silver Valley Girl make a snowman in their backyard in Kellogg during 1968-69 winter

Tonight, I took some pictures of the infamous backyard tri-color beech tree out in the snow. Here's some shots from our back deck.

#112--My Tree--Sadie in a Snow Globe

“When it snows, you have two choices: shovel or make snow angels”

#111--My Tree--From My Dining Room Table

In proceeding to the

dining-room,

the gentleman gives one arm to the lady he escorts

—it is unusual to offer both.

- Lewis Carroll

#110--My Tree--Through the Back Door

For the sun will shine in my back door some day.

- Richard M. Jones

#109--My Tree--Looking in on the Neighbors

A bad neighbor is as great a calamity as a good one is a great advantage.

- Hesiod

#108--My Tree--New Beginnings

What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

The end is where we start from.

- T.S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot

#107--My Tree--New Year's Eve

The only way to spend New Year’s Eve

is either quietly with friends or in a brothel.

Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off,

someone is bound to be left in tears.

- W.H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden

#106--My Tree--Winter Twilight

There’s precious little to say between day and dark,

Perhaps a few words on the implacable will

Of time sailing like a magic barque

Or something as fine for the amenities....

- Allen Tate

#105--My Tree--Hushed...Solemn

The cold was our pride, the snow was our beauty.

It fell and fell, lacing day and night together in a milky haze,

making everything quieter as it fell,

so that winter seemed to partake of religion

in a way no other season did,

hushed, solemn.

- Patricia Hampl

#102--My Tree--Evening Snow

How easily it falls, how easily I let drift

On the surface of morning feathers of self-reproach:

How easily I disperse the scolding of snow.

- Philip Larkin

#101--My Tree--11-19-2007--First Snowfall

Announce by all the trumpets of the sky,

Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields,

Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air

Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,

And veils farm-house at the garden’s end.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

#100--My Tree--11-14-2007--Captured at Dawn

Each time dawn appears,

the mystery is there in its entirety.

- René Daumal