Fabulous Foliage

When I first moved to Boston (and only slightly less often now that I've been indoctrinated into the culture here), I often wondered why the HELL the pilgrims ever settled here. If I had laid eyes on this frozen hell hole after 3 months on a boat, I would have taken a big fat left and headed for the warmer waters of Florida. I've never understood why people would want to live here. If asked, natives will talk about the beauty of the landscape or the wonderful fall foliage. But I've never agreed. We have deciduous trees in other parts of the country too, I'd say.

That was until this year. We had some incredibly magical foliage this year that almost made me glad to live in New England. Everywhere I turned it seemed this tree or that was absolutely exploding with color. Orange, red, yellow, all three....my drives to and from work were a treat for the eyes for almost two months.

And seeing the foliage always reminds me about the true limitations of the human knowledge. Though we can splice the atom, we still don't know why and how the leaves change color. To me, there is something magical about that.

Here are just a few shots from our neighborhood. These were taken after the more intense colors had past, but are still wonderful:



Even the ivy on many of the buildings seemed to be ablaze in color: