Autumn in Atlanta: Photo Mash-Up #2

From October, or Autumnal Tints by Henry David Thoreau:

“Every blade in the field — every leaf in the forest — lays down its life in its season as beautifully as it was taken up. It is the pastime of a full quarter of the year. Dead trees — sere leaves — dried grass and herbs — are not these a good part of our life? And what is that pride of our autumnal scenery but the hectic flush — the sallow and cadaverous countenance of vegetation — its painted throes — with the November air for canvas?”

From On Looking: A Walker’s Guide to the Art of Observation by Alexandra Horowitz:

“I stopped to admire the tree, a bright spectacle of yellow leaves and orange fruits on a gray November morning. It had dressed for autumn, yet in its very dressing seemed more robust and lively: it was living and changing on our time scale, quite unlike the iron and granite nearby.”

As autumn in Atlanta continues its advance, The Photographer and His Dog spent the morning raking the first big batch of leaves dropped from a giant elm tree that towers over their garden. Well … to be accurate, only one of them did the raking; the other had great fun dive-bombing the piled leaves, stealing and dragging the biggest sticks he could fit in his mouth, and generally running circles around the courtyard in the energy created by a cool fall breeze. And, now, that one gets to take a nap under the desk while the other assembles this blog post — consisting of four galleries of new images from another trip to Oakland Cemetery.

Here’s the first gallery. I included a few images of this tree in my previous autumn mash-up post, and on a subsequent photo-trip, I’ll snap-up the full tree and share the images. It’s large enough that you can stand beneath it and — while covered in its shade — hear a soft tinkling sound when the wind blows, a sound that reminds me of chimes made from capiz shells.

Last week we had the first fall freeze here, an unusual one that continued for a couple of days and was severe enough to dissolve the leaves of plants like hostas and hydrangeas, as well as those of some nearby trees that hadn’t yet changed color. This second gallery below shows tiny ground-cover daisies that I found among the tombstones and gravestones of the cemetery prior to the freeze, the stone surfaces creating a nice contrast with the colors of the flowers. Until mid-November, the relatively warm fall meant that some hardy-bloomers like these were still doing well. I went back to the property yesterday to see if they’d survived the freeze; and, surprisingly, many of them did and — with moderating temperatures — continue to bloom.

I saw the colors featured in this third gallery from about half a mile away. Based on the structure of this young tree and the appearance of the leaves, I think this is a Japanese Maple variant. I found images on the web of a Baby Lace Japanese Maple that looked a lot like this one. The leaves are very delicate and intensely curly — possibly just how they look this late in the season — and the bright orange just glowed against the gray on the tree branches and the green in the background.

This last gallery shows a tree I believe is called Golden Larch, where I spent about an hour marveling at the fiery oranges and yellows that mix with the last bits of green on its branches. The final image in this gallery shows most of the full tree — an unobstructed two-thirds of it that I was able to fit in a single image.

My previous autumn 2019 photo mash-up, and a few other posts with new fall color photos, are here:

Autumn in Atlanta: Photo Mash-Up #1

Four Small Signs of Early Fall

More Small Signs of Early Fall

Even More Small Signs of Early Fall

Autumn Tints at Twilight

Burnt Orange and Singed Pumpkin

Thanks for reading and taking a look!