Day 333 - Outdoor decor

Time to replace our fall Indian corn, gourds and pumpkins with some winter greenery, pinecones, and... I dunno, maybe berries. This bag of pinecones will get us started.

Day 314 - Fall perspective

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower."
~ Albert Camus ~

Day 306 - More fall colors

This past week of chill has really brought out the colors and today the weather was just glorious, so we took off again looking for more fall eye-candy. This little pretty lives right up the street from us.

Back in Cunningham Falls State Park, we found a spot where we were able to get down closer to Hunting Creek.

On the way back home we stopped near Buckeystown to enjoy the scenic Monocacy River.

Day 300 - Majestic maple

Our maple is finally glowing in all its autumn majesty. If the weather stays clear and relatively calm, in another few days it will canopy the front yard in a beautiful golden shade.

Lew's Pics has another lovely view.

Day 297 - Leaves

Seeing as I didn't venture far from the house today, these leaves on the deck were as autumnal as I got. :)

Day 296 - SSDD

Now, now... be nice. I'm talking about Same SPOT, Different Day. ;)

I took several photos of squirrels and bluejays today, but they all turned out crappy so I deleted them but I did fulfill my project duties of taking a photo a day. Instead, I'm posting a couple I took recently when we were at Cunningham Falls State Park.

These were taken at the same spot but a week apart at different times of the day and under different weather conditions. Note the change in foliage color.

Hunting Creek Lake, Cunningham Falls State Park
October 11, 2008 on a crisp, clear and still day

Hunting Creek Lake, Cunningham Falls State Park
October 17, 2008 on a crisp, partly cloudy and windy day

Day 294 - Autumn leaves

Whew! Glad Karin chose Autumn for this week's theme because as much as we've waited for fall to finally explode with color in our parts, it just hasn't cooperated. Last week was probably the best for color as the winds are leaving the trees barer this week.

However, our sugar maple, though not the gorgeous golden color it usually is, is still holding on to most of its leaves. Karin, this one's for you! :)

Day 292 - Chasing colors

We took advantage of another glorious day -- chilly and windy, but beautiful -- and drove up to Greenbrier State Park on South Mountain looking for more fall colors.

There are patches of beautiful color throughout the park, but a lot is muted and there's still a good bit of green showing. I think what we're seeing is what we're going to get this year rather than the vivid panoramic views we had hoped for.

I'll enjoy it while we can though before the winds blow it all away. Lew's Pics has more pretty views of our day's doings.

Day 286 - Season's end

"Corn and grain, corn and grain
All that falls shall rise again."
Wiccan harvest chant

Day 285 - Standing out

We drove back up to Cunningham Falls State Park today to check out the Hunting Creek lake area -- we want to make sure we don't miss the peak color season. There's still a lot of green but the leaves are slowly changing and we found patches of color here and there. This orange beauty caught my eye as soon as we got to the lake parking area...

... another view from the side.

Day 284 - Bits of fall color

Little by little the colors of fall are starting to appear. This branch on our backyard oak shows off a pretty array of green, yellow, brown, and rusty orange.

Day 281 - Basket o' gourds

More orange color spills out from a fall basket decoration on the porch bench.

Day 278 - Feeble falls

Even though it's a little early, we went for a drive up to Cunningham Falls in the Catoctin Mountains to see if we could catch some fall color. The falls are almost as scant as they were when Lew took the boys in July, and the leaves are still pretty green. Looks like it'll be another couple of weeks or so before they put on their display.

Day 275 - Pots of pretty

When we finished decorating the front porch, we thought a little fall color on the patio would look nice.

After taking a picture of the dogwood branch yesterday, the bright yellow of this leaf lying in the grass caught my eye as I walked back to the house.

Day 274 - Red Leaves

"Everyone must take time to sit
and watch the leaves turn..."
~ Elizabeth Lawrence ~

Our pink dogwood presents a pretty fall display of red berries and leaves.

Day 268 - Mum's the word

A sure sign of fall hereabouts is the abundance of mums that start appearing in yards, garden shops, and stores when the weather cools. When we stopped at Safeway to pick up a few items, there were masses of these yellow pretties on display .

Day 243 - Transition...

...from summer to fall.

Day 17 - Snowy colors

The winter we didn't have last week decided to show up today, bringing with it the expected colder temps and a fluffy, softly falling snow to cover the landscape. A dramatic change from two days ago. See another photo here.

Day 8 - Cozy little nest

Winter (when we're not having record-breaking temperatures of 73!) in my neck of the woods means bare-naked trees. After the leaves and acorns drop, the squirrels scurry around gathering their winter stash of nuts, and some of the leaves end up back in the trees in the form of squirrel nests. This one lives up at the tippity-top of our maple tree.

P.S. Lew bought a new camera - a Nikon D40X - with an awesome telephoto lens. 'Course I get to use it too - provided I can hold the stupid thing steady - and with the help of a tripod, I got this waaaaay up there shot. Wheee!

Day 7 - Winter??

Hardly the winter temperature we normally have!! We're experiencing dramatic unseasonably warm temperatures in our area. Tomorrow we're supposed to get more of the same... I may have to pull out the sun block!

(I posted two for today so I can get on track with the weekly theme at the beginning of the week instead of on Tuesday.)