Fall: A Time for New Beginnings

Regrettably, I've been on quite an extended leave of absence from this blog. Life has been very busy--and full of change--for this family. My daughter graduated from high school last May and just recently got her driver's license, a car of her own, and started classes at a nearby community college (30 miles away but nearby for us), where she's studying photography and journalism. Armed with my old camera and a new MacBook, she is now officially launched into adulthood and I am (mostly) free of parenting and chauffeur duties and school volunteer work so perhaps I'll be able to update this blog more often and devote more time to EcoPrints.


I'd like to get back into the swing by posting a photo to mark this first day of fall, as fall is my absolute favorite season.

Skyward Aspens

Autumn on Conifer Mountain

There is a harmony

In autumn, and a lustre in its sky,

Which through the summer is not heard or seen,

As if it could not be, as if it had not been!

- Percy Bysshe Shelley

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 Click on the image below to view more nature photos.

Autumn Reflection

Autumn Splendor #4

November comes

And November goes,

With the last red berries

And the first white snows.

"Autumn Reflection"
(click on photo for larger view)

Bright orange foliage is reflected in a quiet pool of water.

Bear Brook State Park, Allenstown, NH 

With night coming early,

And dawn coming late,

And ice in the bucket

And frost by the gate.

The fires burn

And the kettles sing,

And earth sinks to rest

Until next spring.

~ Clyde Watson

For me, despite what the calendar shows, autumn is over when November is over:  "Earth sinks to rest," as the above poem, says. And as I relish these last few quiet days of fall before the hectic holiday seasons begins, I reflect on autumns past and remember a place I loved to hike in my youth. One glorious fall day in New Hampshire, as I walked along one of my favorite trails, I came across this beautiful tree in full foliage reflected in a pool in the stream that follows the trail. My camera always at the ready, I was able to capture the moment.

The light patch about a third of the way down on the left is a rock just under the water. The shot I took was of the tree upside down from the opposite bank but I thought the tree looked better upright.

View more photos at www.ecoprints.net

Autumn Foliage

Autumn Splendor #3

"Delicious autumn!  My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."  
~ George Eliot

"Autumn Foliage"

(click on photo for a larger view)

Shorter days signal the remarkable
transformation of fall in the Rockies.
Reynolds Park. Conifer, Colorado