Autumn celebration

Ah! So this is what the last day of Autumn feels like.  

Let's have a little photographic celebration.

Here is a reprise of some of the photos I have been using as my header photos throughout Autumn.  Because I take them down each day, they are lost to the blog, so I have posted some of my favourites as a record of this most colourful season.  

I hope you don't mind seeing them again.

Now for the pleasures of Winter!

I will let you in on a little secret.  

Princess Pinkyness is coming to visit Grandma 

all the way from the U.S.A. next week.  

I haven't met her yet

and I am just a little bit excited!
She is bringing her mummy and daddy
and Mr Muscle too.

Fun guys in the valley

I have been compiling this post for a while,

hoping for the flush of mushrooms we had last year.  

But alas, there have been no mushrooms...

although there may be yet.

Anyway, here are the photos

 of some of the fun guys 

in the Valley of One Thousand Hills.

Mick - Proprietor of the General Store - maker of my Friday lattes at the op--shop.

Ross - The School Principal and general good guy

Rhys - The chippie

Pete - The environmentalist and bush poet 

and the only person in the world who

I would allow to call me, 'Lass'.

Aye!  It's a great place to live!

Variations on Autumn

One tree and its coat of many colours.

Jonquils

I have been wondering what the bulbs were that popped up in early Autumn...now I know. Jonquils! There are other bulbs that have shot since. You will know, as soon as I know, what they are when they bloom.

Life goes on...

Well it may be Autumn, with Winter officially less than two weeks away, and we could be forgiven for becoming a little maudlin as everything begins to die down. But take a closer look. The now exfoliated nectarine tree already has buds ready for the Spring and the bees are still out and about foraging in whatever flowers there are in the late Autumn sun.

Hazel's Autumn Leaves Obsession

I was trying to focus on the drop of water.

A prima ballerina?

Apologies for the number of autumn foliage photos I have been putting up...but I can't resist their beauty. I have thrown in the fuschia and rose to break it up a bit.

Trees

I can't stop admiring the changes Autumn brings to this garden. I wonder why they call this one, Silver Birch!

Every day the leaves on the Japanese Maples are turning a deeper shade. At a distance they look red, but close up you can see many colours... and fashionably, they are wearing matching stalks.

On my daily trip to the letterbox I always pause to look up through the crabby branches of the crab apple trees silhouetted against the sky.

Can you guess the plants?

Clues:

One produces edible fruit and one doesn't

One is a very popular screening plant.

Chrysanthemums

The Chyssies came out for Mother's Day. Hope you all had a good one.