Figure 1 – Maple leaf prints on the pavement (IPhone photograph), (c) DE Wolf 2013.

I went out for a walk along the river at lunch today and I was amazed.  It’s been six weeks since my first fall foliage posting of the year and the trees are still at.  This is very unusual.  I went back and visited the site where I photographed “First touches of fall,” and not surprisingly, the lily pads are gone, and the leaves are all gone from the overhanging trees.  Still, the reds that I said were missing have now emerged and the oaks are putting on a magnificent display of reddish browns, and orange browns, and burnt oranges.

However, I suspect that  you will scream if I post one more image of brilliant autumnal color.  Enough is enough, Wolf.  Time to get back to black and white! So I’ll have to find expression in other topics.

One significant point is the importance of looking down.  He who looks constantly straight ahead is apt to trip and fall on his/her face.  So I did just that.  I did look down.  It is a male habit.  As young boys we learn the lesson that treasures are to be found by the perceptive eye on the ground.

Today I was looking at the pavement, and what I found was kind of interesting.  It had rained over the weekend and some maple leaves had stuck to the ground and rotted a while, long enough to leave barely perceivable impressions of themselves.  The leaves are now “Gone with the wind.”  But the impressions linger – themselves the last ephemeral remembrances of summer.  Under different circumstances these impressions might become fossilized and last for millions of years.  The duration of these leaf prints is more fleeting.  Come the next rain or at best the melting of snow next spring and they will be washed away, except as Figure 1, taken with my IPhone, preserves them.