The maple trees around here are turning colors. They are brilliant reds and oranges and golds this year.
Each year I notice how beautiful they are, each year I think the colors are the prettiest ever.
Just like this year.
But today I also feel tinges of sadness as fall progresses because my little girl, the one who loved fall and who believed the trees turned color just for her isn’t here to enjoy it.
Katie looked so beautiful in fall colors.
She’s everywhere I look.
I swear the birds in my yard are so spoiled.
They wait every morning, growing more impatient every hour I’m late, for their feeders to be filled.
Yes feeders. As in multiple.
They already had an oiler feeder, a thistle feeder, a flat feeder and an oriole and/or hummer feeder, depending on the season.
But I follow a bird photographer who just purchased a new feeder that seemed to be a bird favorite, so I ordered one too.
The birds love it. I don’t know if it’s just because it’s new, or because the bigger birds who can’t fit through my caged feeder have a new source of snacks.
Yesterday it enticed three different types of woodpeckers to spend time near our windows.
I hope you enjoyed seeing them as much as we did!
And go over and read Backyard Bird Nerd’s blog. You’ll love the variety of birds that she attracts to her yard!
I’m looking forward to spending more time with my birds, but I’ll try to get up earlier to get those feeders filled before they go on strike and demand one treat per image taken. It’s possible Katie left them a copy of her contract and I don’t want that kind of thought process to spread.
The wildflower seed my husband planted this spring has produced hundreds of plants, all about knee high now, and just beginning to bloom.
They will continue to grow taller as they bloom from now until the first heavy frost, hopefully months away.
It feels like summer has just begun when you look at these fresh green leaves reaching for the sky.
But walking in the woods this morning, in mid-July, it feels like fall is on the way.
How can both things be possible at the same time?
I guess the same way I wish this summer would be over and I hope it’s never over.
It’s the summer my girl moved on and I wonder if I will feel as close to her once the season changes.
It’s the summer my girl moved on and I want the pain to ease and hope it does once the season changes.
Meanwhile, summer marches on, one day at a time, slipping away while I watch.
Just like she did.
I sat on the deck the other day, watching the comings and goings. I was thinking about my girl, of course, but also just enjoying a beautiful day.
Here’s one of the many tales from my backyard.
Change Is Hard 