Fall along the Assabet, West Concord, Massachusetts, IPhone photograph, (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Just in case you think that the only place that I go to photograph is the Fresh Pond Reservation I thought that I would post the image of Figure 1, and yes it is real.  I was headed for coffee this morning at the Nashoba Brook Bakery in West Concord, Massachusetts and as I was walking across the footbridge over the Assabet River and I came upon this scene. If you look closely in the middle left of the image you will even see a great blue heron, who like me was looking for breakfast.

All that I had with me was my IPhone 6, which, as ever, presented just a bit of glare and saturation, especially as it was coupled with morning fog.  But still I was pretty happy with the results. Pastels are my favorites!, and iIt will be something to look at when the snow falls.

Figure 1 – Fall Foliage along Little Fresh Pond, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015

It is so glorious along Fresh Pond just now. So I have to share the view with you. The weathermen think that the foliage will peak this weekend. The image of Figure 1 is across the Little Fresh Pond. It is amazing to just walk along and watch the leaves fall. The birds seem filled with expectation. The woodpeckers have forsaken their usual diet of bugs beneath park for readily available berries; so instead of climbing up the trees they flit among the leaves, often hanging upside down.

I have been watching very closely for the ducks. The mallards and the ring necks are congregating in the pond. Yesterday I saw a pied billed grebe in the water. Today I saw a raptor flying along the waters edge. But I have yet to see my favorite, the white hooded merganser.

It all makes you think about the cycles of nature and of life. The Earth, save its cycles, seems to never change, but in reality and on a geological time scale it does. You have only to look at the Pond itself – a glacial kettle pond, like it’s neighbor Walden Pond of literary fame.  The landscape of Fresh Pond is indeed a book about glaciation. And to read this book is to realize that ultimately the world changes. But this prospect only enhances the profound sense that the seemingly endless seasonal cycles evoke in our minds. It all is truly glorious.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 91 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/800th sec at f/9.0 with no exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Changing, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

In follow-up to yesterday’s blog, I suppose that part of the mystery of autumn lies in the changing. It is the mystery of Ovid’s Metamorphosis – that something can be one thing now and something else later, that the static universe is, in fact, precarious. So back to reds. The reds in a New England fall come mostly from the Maples. This is why it is hands down most vivid in Vermont where the Maples abound.

The other afternoon, I caught this particular maple at Fresh Pond in the very act of changing. It is as if the finger tips of each leaf was changing before my eyes from verdant green to orange-red. And there is still visible the warm of early fall sunshine glistening on the leaves.

For the most part what I have seen so far are intimate closeup fallscapes like this.  The broader views are just forming.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 70 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/125th sec at f/9.0 with no exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Poison ivy by Fresh Pond, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA.

As I mentioned last week, the reds are key to fall color and some of the first reds that we see are the poison ivies. It’s almost startling just how much poison ivy there is. It is everywhere. I found a particularly well-lit bunch this afternoon, which contrasted very nicely with the water of the pond. This is by the Glacken Slope and is shown in Figure 1. These leaves are a combination of reds and oranges, as if they cannot quite make up their minds.

It is always interesting to encounter not only something beautiful but also to mentally encounter the associations that it conjures up.  I cannot see poison ivy without remember reading, as a post doc, a discussion in Herman Eisen’s “Immunology” about the “fact” that native Americans ate poison ivy to cause themselves to become immune. Don’t try this at home, and let me explain with Eisen’s own words (please excuse the scientific lack of word mincing):

“Recently a similar approach, refined by feeding the purified catechol responsible for poison ivy sensitization, has been found to be of dubious value: the presence in feces occasionally produces in sensitized individuals an unusually severe perianal contact dermatitis, once referred to as the “emperor of pruritis ani.””

I have written in the margin the word “ouch.”

It should finally be noted that domestic goats do not appear to suffer from the same problem and in Massachusetts having goats consume you poison ivy infestation is considered to be the ecologically friendly approach.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 70 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE mode 1/1600th sec at f/9.0 with -1 exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Black walnut, Fresh Pond Reservation by Lusitania Field, Cambridge, Massachusetts. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Over the last few weeks at Fresh Pond the black walnut trees have been fruiting. These are wonderful green spheres, beautiful in their geometric simplicity, that make a major mess if you step on them. But they bring back memories of graduate school days in Ithaca. The Cornell Plantations, which is a university arboretum, has a grove of these trees and they harvest them every fall. But more significant is that they used to, I don’t know if they still do, serve the most tasty black walnut ice cream at the Cornell Dairy, made, of course, from university cows (Big Red Cows). Yummy! I want to race back and see if I can get some right now. This is the time of year hen the first flakes fly in Ithaca, NY.

The picture of Figure 1 I took of some yellowing leaves and some beautiful examples of the nut pods still clinging precariously to the tree. It turned out best in black and white and almost as a silhouette in reverse. That creates and abstract and dreamlike quality which fits my personal memories so well. Other readers, who were there, will have their own favorite flavors. Mine was black walnut.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 84 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE mode, 1/1000th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation

Figure 1 – The first color of fall 2015, Litlle Fresh Pond, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Well, it is time for nature to work its magic in New England. I went out for a walk along Fresh Pond today, to catch the early fall color. The key to autumn is the reds. The yellows and the recalcitrant greens are beautiful, but it is always as if they would be nothing without the brilliant reds. The first act in this chromatic parade is, believe it or not, the poison ivy, and that abounds with its brilliant crimson shades. But today I was attracted to this little tree along the shore of Little Fresh Pond. I intentionally captured just out-of-focus the surrounding reeds and the deeply out-of-focus pond itself in the background. And like I said, this is just the beginning.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 84 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/2000 th sec at f/7.1, with -1 exposure compensation.