Joys of Winter

.....and through the garden door I can see my Liquid Amber which I grew from a cutting. It's now beginning to look like a baby tree at last. Fiery colour of yellow, orange and red.

Fierce squalls and a high tide with spray coming over the road. Exciting! And the beech trees in particular on our drive round to DD's trumpet lesson (26 miles round trip) were lovely and coppery.

That's what I call 'a lovely bit of weather', and you can't beat a full grown beech in Autumn.

And down here, my birches are only just turning, and the rose at the front door has decided to go for it again, and is full of buds. But as we drove home through Dorset, Hampshire and Kent yesterday, the trees were amazing in their colours.

The sycamores and ashes are nearly bare here. The larches are a beautiful gold, and the ornamental cherry leaves are turning through yellow and orange to red . The bird cherries have been bare for weeks and weeks already. Our grass is lush and very green and very wet. Reckon I'll have to take a scythe to it this winter as I don't think the mower will cope with the bogginess.

Well, Bagitha, our lawns at least have a lot in common! Lush is the right word!

Went out at the weekend and the colours of the trees were absolutely stunning - Nature in all her glory. A really beautiful sight.

Went out earlier in my car in the dark and noticed how many cyclist don't have lights!!!! Also there were a number of cars with only one headlight!

Oh dear I am a grumpy old witch tonight.

I saw a beautiful skein of storks on my walk this morning. I heard them before I saw them. I'm trying to find a word to describe their call ....... but can't come up with just the right one yet.

It was one of those walks when nature never disappoints.

You are so lucky Butternut. That must have been a fabulous sight to see.

Oh dear! The maples seem to be fading, and the last of the rowans is fast losing its leaves. My car, parked under it is covered with little leaves every morning. The yellow berries are still there because the blackbirds have binges every so often and then leave them alone for days at a time. Funny, that!

I am going to try to put a picture on my profile of my Friend's garden (3 1/2 acres!!!) in New Hampshire, where they've had heavy snow. It will probably take me a while, but do look - it's stunning. But they do have the generator on, and the wood stove...

Done it! Do look at the snowy scenes in my friend's garden.

Very pretty - very cold!

Looks beautiful when it is all clean and crisp. Lovely photos, had to laugh, look as if you are standing in front of my son's kitchen window.

Yellow holly leaves decorating part of the lawn .

...and I'll say it again...love this thread.

Looks lovely,but they must be depressed that winter has come so early. I lived in Connecticut for a few years and we ahad one of those New England winters, beautiful, but you got tired of it after a while.

I think they are a bit fed up - feel they've missed Autumn too. And it is deep countryside too. They have the best stocked cellar I have ever seen, ready for being snowed in, and the logs are piled up by the door. It's an 18th century farmhouse, and has a "gathering room" and a "borning room", as well as the huge cellar. Can imagine in early times they had to be even more prepared!

Copper-coloured hills across the loch as the late afternoon light falls slantwise on the dead bracken.

ariadne, I hope your friends are seeing a bit more autumn now. My nephew in upstate NY says the snow melted very quickly and that it has been "quite warm" for the last few days .

Oh! And a treecreeper on the trunk of the bare silver birch. They're much harder to see when it's in full leaf.

bagitha - your "copper-coloured hills......" could have been a line straight out of a Walt Whitman poem.

Thanks, butternut. Check out this lovely autumnal pic from NY. Love the colour contrast:
epod.usra.edu/blog/2011/11/fall-comes-to-the-devonian.html

A "joy of winter" - being able to cover up and huddle under giant cardi-coats, opaque tights and BOOTS!

Lovely photo's Baggy and Ariadne.
The lane opposite my house leads to a beautiful river meadow, which in turn leads to the sea. It takes me one minute to walk to the river and twenty minutes to walk to the beach. I am so, so fortunate - especially at this time of the year when the hills outside my window and the sea and the cliffs look different every day.