Texture Tuesday: Gratitude

I love what's happening outside right now.  I love how nature slowly creates an autumn masterpiece that reminds me to show gratitude for the simple things that add up to a life.

Today is Texture Tuesday over at Kim Klassen's Cafe  The inspiration for this photo was gratitude. I kicked it up a notch by using two of Kim's textures, Nature's Beauty and Portrait.  I flipped portrait and used it twice for added texture. If you're fascinated by the use of textures and want to see more head over to.... 

November Outside My Window

The scene outside my window has noticeably changed over the last month. The two trees that I gaze at when words elude me went from green to golden yellow with tinges of orange to become a colorful carpet on the neighbor’s lawn and finally raked into a pile along side the street. A study in simplicity, dark limbs stretch toward the sky creating outlines and negative space. I may be in the minority, but I believe the beauty of trees in late fall and winter continues.

Gone are the garments that covered long thick branches. Maple, oak, beech and birch reveal the strength of character that houses birds, squirrels, insects, and sometimes hold a swing for childhood glee. Again, I may be in the minority, but I look forward to the time when snow frosts the trees bringing yet another magical moment outside my window.

It’s Mr. Noodle
The ferocious black cat in my Halloween post was none other than Mr. Noodle who had a hard time playing the part. What he wanted to do was roll onto his back so I would scratch his belly. Out of five shots he was slightly spooky in one.


"I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its tone is mellower, its colours are richer, and it is tinged with a little sorrow. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and its content."

-Lin Yutang

When the Frost is On...

The frost is on....creeping thyme, the peppers still turning red on the vine, and yes on the pumpkins. A veil of white covered the grassy field across the way creating that tell-tale fall sign that winter smirks just behind the vibrant skirt of autumn. According to the Farmers' Almanac, this area should have had ten more days before the first frost, but after an abnormally cool summer who could be surprised at an early frost?

Every frosty morning in October has a colorful leafy lining. Soon, the world around those of us fortunate enough to live where vivid seasonal changes occur will be showered in colorful leaves. I checked out a couple sites that update when to expect nature's grand show to begin. Weather.com gives regional maps along with an explanation of why leaves change color. The map of the US on GORP's Fall Foliage Guide offers an approximate time when you can expect the leaves to change in your area. For northwest Ohio...sometime in mid-October, yellow, orange, russet, and red leaves reach the peak of color before cascading into a free fall to the ground.

Bring it on autumn! I'm ready for brisk walks down country roads, trees decked out in fancy fall frocks, crisp apples, grinning jack 0'lanterns, gourds, corn shocks, goblins and ghosts, hot apple cider laced with spices, succulent turkey, geese honking overhead, a harvest moon, "...O, it's then the time a feller is a-feelin' at his best...When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.*"

*From James Whitcomb Riley's poem, When the Frost is on the Punkin