And more ice

Frozen leaves on the ground:

Trailing blackberry, Rubus ursinus

A very old maple leaf

Newer maple leaf, with alder leaves and grass.

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Cristales de hielo en hojas en el suelo. 1. Zarzamora autóctona. 2. Hoja de maple. 3. Maple y aliso.

Red

Still more fall colour ...

Red alder

A few dahlias are still blooming in spite of last week's storms.

Rainbow leaves

They come in every colour but blue. But for that, we have skies.

One of Laurie's hostas, under a mulch donated by the trees overhead.

This one turned up by the back door, blown in from a neighbour's tree.

Detail of dead maple leaf

Sunlight through sweet gum leaves and seed pods. At the mall.

Not quite wordless

Dead leaves, Elgin Heritage Park:

Cottonwood, I think.

Late night, early morning. Off to bed.

More shades of green

The annual re-leafing of Cougar Creek park has started. Greenish-white flowers bloom overhead, standing tall above the leaves:

Elderberry branch. The leaves, even freshly opened, are a deep green.

Clusters of tiny flowers on tall stems.

These flowers are edible. The red berries, later on, not so much, although BC native peoples ate them, and birds love them. But most people today complain of a pungent aftertaste, too many seeds, and a long, complicated processing to remove seeds and taste.

But the flowers are excellent. Dad used to dip the clusters, whole, stem and all, into pancake batter and cook them the same as regular pancakes. It made a nice springtime breakfast treat.

... or hanging in the shelter of new, green-yellow maple leaves. 

In the shade of the maples, a new forest of large horsetails is taking over the shore of the lagoon.

Spore-producing shoots (strobili). The taller, all-green, sterile stalks will appear after these have spread their spores. Most of the green leaves are buttercups.

There are always dandelions.

More red than green. Smaller maple growing in deep shade by the creek.

In sunny patches, the salmon berries are in flower, but not the Indian plum. Not yet, but it won't be long now.

Fallen leaves

And a hint of mist . . .

Centennial Park, Tsawwassen

We had 50-some trick-or-treaters, plus parents, this evening. I am so tired now, I can't keep my eyes open to the end of a sentence.

Goodnight!

While I was on the beach

... taking photos of floating maple leaves, Laurie looked at our maples at home.

Blogging may be light for a couple of days, while I work on a long-planned, and always postponed post.

(There! Now I've committed myself to finishing, I'll actually get it done.)

Laconic Monday. (Not quite wordless.)

This is so last season:

 Busy Monday coming up. I'm off to bed.

At this time of year ...

... even the parking lots are beautiful.

From the delicate tracery of dying weeds against a wall ...

to the yellow and gold ...

and brick reds ...

and red-apple warmth of the trees ...

and back to the hint of green and pink on the underside of a fallen leaf ...

the weekly shopping becomes a pleasure not to be missed.
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Green lights in the understory

Nothing says "spring" to me like the bright yellow-green leaves in the brown understory of the forest. Every year I wait and watch for them; every year they're new and magic.

Indian plum, each new bud like a burst of green flame.

Yellow-green, or chartreuse, is

the most visible color to the human eye because it sits directly in the middle of the frequencies of visible light. (Wikipedia)

I didn't know that. I did know that a ray of spring sunlight, angling down between the heavy evergreen branches overhead, and shining through a spray of fresh-sprouted salmonberry leaves, catches my breath away.

The newest baby horsetails.

Willow over the slough.

Willow catkins, close up.

Salmonberry leaves.

Elderberry; coarser, tougher, fast-growing. In a couple of weeks, the flowers will be in full bloom.

The holly and the ivy. Dark evergreens, but now even they are fringed with golden light.

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Slug heaven

When the rains come, we always head down to Watershed Park; it's mushroom time!

And the slugs are partying. This one seems to be sleeping it off, though:


I don't remember seeing that striping on the foot before; very pretty.


And the head is such a warm golden colour! It matches the leaves.

Yes, we found mushrooms. Photos tomorrow.
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Getting down to basics

Trees in the twilight in Strathcona, yesterday:

Not all the leaves are on the sidewalk. Yet.

Fig tree. Fruit ripening without leafy cover.

Moonlight shining through clouds and bare branches.

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Time wasters

I've been wasting time, reading and watching the wrap-ups on yesterday's news. Not that I had the time to waste, but when has that ever stopped me?

And I lost another hour or so, reading my Plants of Coastal British Columbia, trying to identify this:


A tall, spare plant, with tiny yellow flowers. An aster of some sort. I find these yellow weeds; hawkweed, hawksbeard, cat's ear, sow-thistle, nipple-wort, etc., extremely confusing. I wonder if there's any simple way to remember which is which. They're worse than bees!

And this one should be a red osier dogwood.


A medium to tall shrub, leaves with prominent veins, red in the fall, flowers and white berries (only two here) in terminal clusters.

Nice that some things, at least, are simple.
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Better than rainbows

It was pouring rain, but we gave up waiting for it to stop; we went out looking for adventure, anyhow. Finn Slough, our destination. It had been too long since we were there.

And we were lucky; just as we arrived, the sun burned its way through the clouds over the river, and highlighted the dying leaves and grasses beneath them.

West end of Finn Slough, under a wet sky.

Tin, gold and steel grey.

White undersides of leaves, blowing in the wind.

More golden trees.

What else we saw, tomorrow. (I'm still sorting photos.)
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Fall back

October/November: time to shut things down for the winter.

Three weeks ago. A snail feasts on a dead rose. Three more flowers to go.

Two weeks ago. Wild silver dollar plant. The seed pods will rattle all winter.

One week ago. Big-leaf maple and "normal" maples caught, for now, on the evergreen ferns.

Yesterday. My young maple has about one day's worth of leaves still hanging on. Bedraggled lily-of-the-valley leaves shelter hungry young slugs.

But the towhees are back, and the juncos; they forage cheerfully among those fallen leaves. And a trio of house finches is still here.

Bathing in the rain.

And Daylight Saving Time is over, done with, finished; I just set my clock back. I get to sleep in! Woo-hoo!
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