A Second Look--October 30, 2013

Ward feels invigorated by cold weather. I just feel cold. So at the first hint of cold weather, my instinct is to stay inside under a nice warm blanket. This week we had our first heavy frost, so the blanket instinct was in full force. However, I managed to pry myself out from under it and spend a pleasant time this afternoon under blue skies and a warm sun doing my Second Look. I had a lot of fun walking through crunchy leaves while looking at mostly either green or brown leaves on the trees. The fall show of colors seems to be subdued this year, but there are still many colors to be seen. 

Here's what I saw this week during my Second Look.

A few blanket flowers managed to survived the frost.

However, this coleus didn't fare so well.

Small mud heaves from the frost. The one in the main part of the picture is about an inch long. Does anyone remember what these are called?

Japanese Maple Seeds. The rest of the maples we have form their seeds in late spring. This one drops its seeds the same time it drops its leaves.

If we're lucky, these pansies should keep blooming for another month or two.

Maple leaves just starting to turn.

A variety of tree states. Some have lost all of their leaves, some have leaves that have turned, some have leaves that are still green, and some are evergreen.

There is a lot of good leaf crunching to be had these days. Does anyone else go out of their way to walk on crunchy leaves?