Salamander
Fire Walking

Yesterday most the trees in my area simultaneously gave up on the idea of holding onto their chlorophyll reserves. With the exception of the walnut trees (who had surrendered leaves and nuts a few weeks back), the trees revealed their leaves' underlying colors yesterday. We were to have one day of peak leafing this year; today we've gotten a rare, premature and most unwelcome snowfall. More on that later. I knew the snow was coming, so I decided to hit the local nature preserve and take in the one day of perfect autumn we were destined to have in 2011.

Despite the cool weather (mid-fifties, with a silver grey sky), there were still field crickets doing a slow, chilled song. Supposedly you can determine the temperature by counting how many times a cricket chirps in 15 seconds and then adding 37 to that number. The rule of thumb didn't hold yesterday though. Perhaps it was chillier near the ground than the ambient air temperature; the cricket-calculated temperature didn't get out of the low forties. Still, the little hoppers did their best to sing their wee hearts out, oblivious to the fact that the end of their world was less than 24 hours away.

I walked through the fields to the woods. These are the same woods that grew behind the house my parents built and the house I grew up in. It was rural then, with few other children about and none my age within reasonable walking distance. I spent untold solitary hours in these woods, never feeling bored or alone. When I return to these woods I can remember how it used to be without being able to actually recapture those feelings for myself. The experience is something between nostalgic and wistful.

The leaves seemed thinner when I was actually surrounded by trees. There was no denying that summer was really over, a denial that had been easier just days before when fully clothed green trees still held sway. My plan was to take pictures of fall foliage, but this just wasn't the year for it. Rather than taking fall pictures on the macro scale, I found myself focusing on the micro instead.

A horse nettle leaf – The thorns always surprise me. The plant seems almost alien.

I found a fallen log covered in moss and small shelf fungi. Each individual fungus had cream, mahogany and black banding. I need to remember those colors next time I make beads.

Wild rose hips: these will be gone by winter's end as the birds start looking for food. Right now between the abundance of seeds and the slow, cold insects the birds aren't targeting these … yet.

Every snowflake might be different, but they are all six-sided and white. If you want diversity in simplicity, I'll take leaves every time.