Fall

Yesterday was the first day of Fall and sure enough, on my morning walk with my friend Beth, we noticed that some of the leaves are beginning to turn. This morning I took my camera along to record this glorious sight along the trail where the brilliant pinky-red maple is seen with wonderful purple shrubbery behind it. The purple stuff is, I believe, Red Osier Dogwood and has snowy white berries, which are quite beautiful, but probably not edible. I think I learned in Girl Scouts that purple berries are usually edible, red berries sometimes and white berries almost never. Anyway, they are beautiful against the purple foliage.

When I was a child our autumn-themed art projects in school usually involved the use of orange, brown and yellow construction paper. For years those were the colors I associated with fall--pumpkins, corn and yellow mums and brown leaves. But that cliche autumnal color scheme isn't reflected in nature, which has much more exciting ideas about what fall should look like. The colors in the photo inspire me and make me want to start pulling out fabrics in purples and reds and acid-y greens.

We walk most mornings on a portion of the Fanno Creek Greenway Trail http://www.metro-region.org/article.cfm?articleid=1045 and have watched the seasons change for nearly three years now. It's a great way to start the day. This morning Beth told me that a cougar had been spotted near where we walk. (Mind you, this trail is within the Portland city limits.) We speculated that a cougar would probably find us less appealing than the large numbers of dogs we see daily being walked on the trail. We giggled, evilly, about what nice cougar snacks the herd of miniature dachshunds we see regularly would make.

Don't flame me--I like the little dogs--really, I do.