"Pay attention to the world." -- Susan Sontag
 

Tag: forests

Single Frame: Autumn Close Up #11

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From John Muir Ultimate Collection: Travel Memoirs, Wilderness Essays, Environmental Studies and Letters by John Muir:

“In the autumn berries of every color and flavor abound, enough for birds, bears, and everybody, particularly about the stream-sides and meadows where sunshine reaches the ground: huckleberries, red, blue, and black, some growing close to the ground others on bushes ten feet high; gaultheria berries, called ‘sal-al’ by the Indians; salmon berries, an inch in diameter, growing in dense prickly tangles, the flowers, like wild roses, still more beautiful than the fruit; raspberries, gooseberries, currants, blackberries, and strawberries. The underbrush and meadow fringes are in great part made up of these berry bushes and vines….”

Single Frame: Autumn Close Up #10

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From John Muir Ultimate Collection: Travel Memoirs, Wilderness Essays, Environmental Studies and Letters by John Muir:

“The beauty and completeness of a wild apple tree living its own life in the woods is heartily acknowledged by all those who have been so happy as to form its acquaintance. The fine wild piquancy of its fruit is unrivaled, but in the great question of quantity as human food wild apples are found wanting. Man, therefore, takes the tree from the woods, manures and prunes and grafts, plans and guesses, adds a little of this and that, selects and rejects, until apples of every conceivable size and softness are produced…. Orchard apples are to me the most eloquent words that culture has ever spoken, but they reflect no imperfection upon Nature’s spicy crab.”

Single Frame: Autumn Close Up #9

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From October, or Autumnal Tints by Henry David Thoreau:

“It is remarkable that the latest bright color … should be this deep, dark scarlet and red, the intensest of colors. The ripest fruit of the year; like the cheek of a hard, glossy, red apple…. This late forest-flower surpasses all that spring or summer could do. Their colors were but rare and dainty specks comparatively … and made no impression on a distant eye…. It is like a little red paint ground on a saucer, and held up against the sunset sky.”

Single Frame: Autumn Close Up #8

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From October, or Autumnal Tints by Henry David Thoreau:

“By the sixth of October the leaves generally begin to fall, in successive showers, after frost or rain; but the principal leaf-harvest, the acme of the Fall, is commonly about the sixteenth. Some morning at that date there is perhaps a harder frost than we have seen … and now, when the morning wind rises, the leaves come down in denser showers than ever. They suddenly form thick beds or carpets on the ground, in this gentle air, or even without wind, just the size and form of the tree above. Some trees … appear to have dropped their leaves instantaneously…. Down they have come on all sides, at the first earnest touch of autumn’s wand, making a sound like rain.”

Single Frame: Autumn Close Up #7

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From October, or Autumnal Tints by Henry David Thoreau:

“October is the month of painted leaves. Their rich glow now flashes round the world. As fruits and leaves and the day itself acquire a bright tint, just before they fall, so the year near its setting….”