Hung out to dry

While the sunshine lasted.

Maple and alder, still damp.

A more permanent drying rack.

Tulip tree leaf in fall plumage

The wind brought this leaf to my door, out of the rain.

Tulip tree leaf, Liriodendron tulipfera.

The source tree is not a tulip, but a tree from the magnolia family, Magnoliaceae. But the flowers look somewhat like tulips. It is also known as the yellow poplar, though it is not a poplar.

The tree is originally from the east coast, but it seems to have adjusted happily to our milder climate; about a third of the leaves that clutter my doormat are tulips. The other two-thirds are mainly a variety of maples, with a few alder leaves as filler.

Texture. Interesting, sharp-cornered cells.

The underside of the leaf, zooming in.

"They" say it will stop raining tomorrow. I'll believe it when I see it.

Silver and red

Driftwood and dying leaves, with fly.

Salmon Point trail.

I'm assuming that this piece of driftwood is from the root end of the log; only there is the wood so undecided as to which direction it wants to go. Where's the food? Where's the water? Above ground, the question is, "Where's the light?" and that's almost always straight up.

Mostly yellow

We'd had a few days of good, steady rain, and then the sun came out, warm and inviting; it was time to go mushroom hunting. I was on my way down to Salmon Point, where there is always a good crop, when I turned to look at the trees over Oyster Bay as I passed. And the light shone on them, and they were yellow.

I got no further. I spent the rest of the afternoon at Oyster Bay.

I always park facing this tree. It's glorious at all seasons.

The internet is wonderful, and the photos it carries can transport you anywhere, but it can't do this: the first thing I noticed, passing the gate to the wild field, was the scents. Imagine a perfume made up of golden leaves, dying brown leaves, grass, the aroma of wet earth, the spicy tang of evergreens, the sweetness of crabapples half eaten by the birds and hornets, a bit more dry grass, almost hay. Add in a whiff of salt water, and the sombre note of black eelgrass out in the lagoon. Got it?

As close as a photo can get to a scent. Random shot, beside my path.

The old apple tree. The apples are gone now. The birds have had their fill.

Down in the grass and weeds, two toasted-bun mushrooms.

Aphid on a fallen maple leaf.

Zooming in on that aphid, running from the camera now.

Even the rocks are decorated for fall. Yellow and white crust lichens, bird guano lovers. These rocks are sometimes covered at high tide.

Yellow "sunny face" lichen on another rock.

So I still have to hurry down to Salmon Point to find those mushrooms before the rain sets in again.

Orangey.

With the cooler nights and the rainy days, deciduous leaves are starting to change colour. The bracken ferns are first in line.

These ferns like open, disturbed sites. This is a logged-off area, populated now by huckleberries, salal, trailing blackberries, mosses, and the ferns. A few trees are moving in.

Detail of fern branches.

Salmonberry is next. They're among the first leaves to show up in spring, and the first to disappear in the fall.