It's Fall here in Oz

Unfortunately this is about as close as I've ever come to New England in the Fall...our yard. Perhaps one day I will finally make to New England.

I hadn’t intended to post pics of the trees but our neighbor across the street asked me too; so here they are.

Every year we have a bunch of people come by to get pics of the trees. Not sure why, they aren't the only ones in town that look this nice. We were told, however, that they are the only Sugar Maples in town - other than the Arboretum (not sure how true this is).

We really don't mind people getting pictures, especially portraits and school pics, but we would like to be asked before they come on the property (people don't seem to know where private property starts). What I hate is when people flat out say they have permission!! That actually happened last Friday. We didn't know the people and they told our neighbors they had permission.

We about lost these two trees (in the front) in 2000.



The city was having the road in front of the house paved and the City Clerk (who is no longer around) decided our trees NEEDED to be cut back in order to 'make it easier for the dump trucks'.

Long story short, there is only an 18" easement in front of our house and the city workers actually came onto the yard (inside the fence) to do the cutting. Thanks to our neighbor (the one who asked the pictures to be placed on the blog) and my father the workers didn't get very far. It almost came to a law suit.

The larger of the two seems to have recovered for the most part, but the smaller one didn't. As you can see in the photos it is a bit misshapen.

I'll just leave you to the pics for now...enjoy!























This tree is not in our yard. It is in the front yard of our neighbors' (the one I've mentioned in this post).

It is the most common tree here in Kansas - the Elm.

Most people don't seem to like them but I do.

This one never fails to turn a beautiful yellow during the Fall. In fact, it is one of the precious few in this town that does such a good job turning yellow. Most of them, like ours, just go to a dirty yellow.

On the right side of the pic you can see where the school has planted a bunch of trees by the parking lot. They replaced several Elms that were ruined due to an ice storm in 2003. These are Oaks, so when they are grown they should complement ours nicely with that spot of yellow sticking out.

This last pic is of a small clump of oaks in the west lawn. The one closest to the house always starts to turn colors first. Every year, when I see it, especially with the sun shining on it's leaves, I'm reminded of the book "The Light in the Forest" by Conrad Richter. Don't know why...just am.





Well, till next time...

Cheers!
Larry ~