Autumn Treasure Hunts

"Early this morning I read about your autumn, and all the colors you brought into your letter were changed back in my feelings and filled my mind to the brim with strength and radiance.

Yesterday, while I was admiring the dissolving brightness of autumn here, you were walking through that other autumn back home, which is painted on red wood, as this one's painted silk."

~Rainer Maria Rilke

Letters On Cezanne

That was one of my favorite leaves from this autumn. It's butterfly shape was magnificent! It's so unusual, and I found it fairly early in the season. October 5th, to be exact. It was on one of my favorite trees, in Ione, California. There aren't many trees there that I consider an autumn go to, but in the back of a park and ride, on the edge of town, are two small trees that produce tiny colorful leaves, and this year, this little butterfly leaf was waiting for me. Sometimes leaf peeping is a little like a treasure hunt, which is great and its just one more reason why I love it so much! Hopefully, I will get to go autumn leaf searching every year for the remainder of my life. One day, someday, I hope to be able to visit New England and jump into a big pile of leaves in Massachusetts or upstate New York, but it's a dream for right now, which is okay, because daydreams like that, inspire me to keep looking forward and not back. The very day autumn passes away this year, will be spent preparing for leaf peeping next year. I love the research, and I love looking forward to the beauty that will be coming my way!

 #69 Leaf Of The Day

November 30th 2019

Sacramento, California

Nikon

~Mood: Happy

~Me  :)

Black Friday

"But there is always a November space after the leaves have fallen when she felt it was almost indecent to intrude on the woods... for their glory terrestrial had departed and their glory celestial of spirit and purity and whiteness had not yet come upon them."

L.M. Montgomery

Anne Of The Windy Poplars

It's Black Friday. When we lived in the Bay Area, we visited Union Square in San Francisco on Black Friday religiously. I have missed it since we left. Hopefully, later today, we will venture out to a mall or maybe Janet Leigh plaza, to people watch or just to get some air, but I'm not sure. Sometimes it's nice to just sit at home and watch some movies. I love my weekends with Alan, especially holiday weekends, but thinking about our trips to the city makes me a lonesome for the good old days of my life in the Bay Area. I try to not look back, but the memories are so good, and when I was making those memories, I never thought in a million years life would change as much as it has. Still, I have Alan and the boys, and that never changes, but my love for them grows more and more.

~Mood: Happy

~Me  :)

Happy Thanksgiving 2019

"Thankfulness creates gratitude, 

which generates contentment, that causes peace."

~Todd Stocker 

 #67 Leaf Of The Day

November 28th 2019

Nevada City, California

Nikon

~Mood: Happy

~Me   :)

I HEART Autumn

"The leaves drifted silently to the ground in the crisp autumn air. I inhaled deeply, the smell of burning bonfires far, far away enchanting my nostrils. Autumn had come early this year and I was excited for the change of colors that had already begun to take over the trees of the forest that surrounded Grandmother's house."

~Emma Rose Kraus

A Blue One

I didn't notice, when I took this photo last Saturday, that the leaves at the base of that beautiful tree, were in a nearly perfect heart shape! I snapped a lot of individual leaf photos, but kept coming back to the base of the tree. There was just something about it that nagged at me to snap the photo. I am very glad I did. Sometimes, throughout a year, magic happens, but it seems to happen all the time in autumn! I cleaned it up a bit, and evened out the lines, but otherwise its pretty close to the original magical gift!

 #66 Leaf Of The Day

November 27th 2019

Stockton, California

Nikon

~Mood: Happy

~Me

One Day Someday In Late Autumn

"Enchantment and fulfillment were on the gold and garnet horizon... autumn's breath, a dormant dream reawakened, a yearning nearly satiated, a tender thank you with a brush of the lips and the connection as fingers touche and go hand in hand."

~Donna Lynn Hope 

Beauty. Late in the day. In Autumn.

#65 Leaf of The Day

November 26th 2019

Grass Valley California

Nikon

~Mood: Happy

~Me  :)

Autumn In Everything

"He couldn't stop smelling the air in great, deep, loud, sniffs. 

It was so delicious. It smelled of water, and mud,

 and maple trees, and autumn."

~Elizabeth Enright

The Four-Story Mistake

One photograph. Two perspectives. My autumn moods run the gambit between loud with color and vibrancy in all things, and silent and cozy, as if the whole world was under a warm wool blanket with me, enjoying a cup of tea and a good book! There is no real middle ground. That's autumn in my life. An almost decadent time of comfort and inner peace. Maybe that's why my creativity spikes this time each year. I can finally relax and breath after the scorching summer doldrums. Everything begins to look beautiful again in autumn. I mean just look at Doris. She was so perfect, that I just knew she was going to stun, regardless of whether I was photographing her in color or black and white. And look at her, it seems I was right! Autumn in everything.

#64 Leaf Of The Day

November 25th 2019

Sacramento, California

Nikon

~Mood: Quiet/Happy

~Me  :) 

 

Under The Sacramento Sun... In Autumn

"Autumn is an interesting season, even in the metaphor of life, is a time of decline, of less, but also intense and haunting beauty. Some places, like some people, never are, or have been, as beautiful as their fall."

~Luigina Sgarro

I'm looking for the last sigh of 2019. We are six weeks or so from 2020, and it's a little scary. So much scares me now. I don't know how anything works, and I am constantly amazed by life and all it's little moments that make up a year. Happy little surprises and sorrows so sharp and quick it's like a worldly paper cut. Its funny that as we grow older we tend to have less patience for such things, rather than more. Doesn't that seem backward somehow? Wouldn't being the age I am, come with all the patience in the world? I mean I am now old enough to look back and see how I got here and what the road was like along the way. But being able to see clearly in the rear view doesn't make the road ahead have less potholes, or me any smarter about how to avoid them.A year from now America will have another presidential election, and there are no guarantees. A lot like life. If autumn manages to dawn next year, will I see it? Will it see me? Will my photography make anyone happy? Will art even exist? Life is too short for autumn to be reluctant. 

I made a new friend yesterday. Meet Doris.

 #63 Leaf Of The Day

November 24th 2019

Sacramento, California

Nikon 

~Mood: Okay

~Me  

Reclining In Autumn

"Autumn that year painted the countryside in vivid shades of scarlet, saffron and russet, and days were clear and crisp."

~Sharon Kay Penman

Time And Chance

I spotted that cool little recliner, in an earlier version of this photo, but decided not to point it out. I wanted to show the full street, because it might just be one of the most beautiful streets I have ever seen in autumn. Nevada City, California is easy to love, and I am sure we will be going back through the spring and summer. The winter is usually impossible to travel without a 4-wheel drive, but who knows, we might have a mild winter. In any case, the person who puts a recliner in front of their house, in autumn, is someone who truly gets it! And probably understands my autumnal obsession. 

Happiness

 And now...

#62 Leaf Of The Day

November 23rd 2019

Stockton, California

Nikon

~Mood: Happy

~Me  :)

 

Relevance In Autumn/Longing For Winter

"Autumn is the greatest reminder: It reminds us how dreamlike beauties our earh has and it reminds us how all these beautiful dreams can easily vanish!"

~Mehmet Murat ildan

I suppose anything can suddenly vanish. It's happened to everyone. Look what the folks of the town of Paradise went through. They had their homes and businesses in one moment, and it was all gone the next. In the span of a day... or in some cases, only an hour or two. I am lucky to have friends, and I even have the pleasure of making the occasional stranger on Twitter laugh or think, the later tends to be more difficult. Just kidding. That's pretty nice, but will there always be a Twitter to provide a window to the world? Even if it's my decision?

 I am tired. I am lonely in a crowd and Autumn isn't going to last nearly long enough. Sigh. I am beginning to slip into going through the motions of life. I get up. Take care of things. Read a little while. Watch Nicole Wallace. Wander Twitter. Visit whoever pops up. Get ready for Alan. Help prep dinner, unless my Fibromyalgia is flaring. Watch a couple movies with Alan. Edit the days photos. Blog here. Go back on Twitter. Visit some accounts that don't make my head explode late at night. Karen. Joe. Margo. Treat Williams. He seems like a nice man. There is a lot to like about Twitter. But lets face it, Twitter is stressful. Twitter isn't the same because of Donald Trump, and mostly I find myself waiting for Trump to get us all killed by tweet. I wait to die either of embarrassment, or just plain die. So, why am I there?

I don't know. I mean it's been nice finding out Treat Williams is a nice guy, he's only ALWAYS been my favorite actor. Go figure.  Who knew there were nice guys anymore, but let's face it, would he notice if I went missing? Nah. I am one tiny peep, in an international sea of peeping music. Shrug. I just don't know where my peep, peep, peep fits in anywhere. Does it have a specific place? Or am I just one more ridiculous whiny chirp? WHINNNNNNE, Yes, I'm whining, but it's my blog and that's why I began blogging, to clear the head noise as my old friend Penny used to call it. Clearing head noise. I don't know, maybe I am just heading into the darkness of my second favorite season I crave, after the bright leaf singing of autumn. Leaves can be loud, if you listen too long. That's a definite possibility.

Okay. All done. Back to life on Twitter. My head is clear of noise.

I think.

Leaves fall. All autumn leaves must fall.

#61 Leaf Of The Day

November 22nd 2019

Sacramento, California

Nikon

~Mood: Lonely/Quiet/Unsure

~Me   :)

#PhotoByRequest "Final Resting Places" In Autumn

"Autumn colors remind us we are all one dancing in the wind."

~Lorin Morgan-Richards

This week's #PhotoByRequest subject is "Final Resting Places." I have collected quiet a few different photos of cemeteries over the years, but I want to expand it over this next year. Hopefully next vacation, next October, we will be able to get over to Colma, to the cemetery that Harold and Maude was filmed in, and perhaps the cemetery in Oakland that is the last resting peace of the Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short. But for now, this post contains a few new, and some previously posted. And in one case, not a cemetery, but rather a small rock garden, in front of the home used in Mrs. Doubtfire, in San Francisco, at the base of a beautiful tree, kindly set aside for fans of Robin Williams, such as myself, to remember the man. He was cremated, so we can't visit his grave, so this little space allows us to say, hello and thank you, to a really great artist. Damn I miss him. I will always miss him, but I will also be forever grateful too. Sigh. And every now and again I visit that rock garden, and bring a couple army men, he liked army men. Anyway, on to the photos. 

The Autumn Leaf Of The Day

#60 Leaf Of The Day

November 21st 2019

Nevada City, California

Nikon

~Mood: Quiet

~Me  

San Francisco In The Autumn Twilight

" 'You have a thousand hearts worth of love to give. A thousand tears may fall when one heart breaks. But never cry for shame. He kept my chin in his thick hand. "Even love lost was well spent.' "

~Emma Scott

I loved my city, and I miss it terribly, but going back for visits is delicious and soul cleansing. Twilight on the Bay Bridge usually provides some beautiful scenes, but again, I think I could argue, and win, that it is at it's most beautiful in autumn. Just look at that golden light, and that fog, and oh my, all that love. If you can't fall in love in San Francisco, your heart has given up. There is so much to love. 

 

Not bad for out of a car, doing 65mps! If I do say so myself. Someone once told me that, the best photos you take are always of people, places and things you really love, and if these are any bit good in your eyes, then you now know just how much I love San Francisco!

 #59 Leaf of The Day

November 20th 2019

Nevada City, California

Nikon

~Mood: Quiet

~Me