Well, now that autumn has arrived here in southwestern Virginia it’s time for the “hills and hollers” to turn from the green of summer into a beautiful mosaic of yellow, orange, red and purple, but for the second year in a row it looks like the leaves are falling to the ground about as fast as they change colors. I’m afraid that once again we’re going to end up with just a handful of colorful leaves clinging to the lower branches with the upper halves of the trees looking quite bare.
I took another drive up scenic U.S. Route 58 towards Grayson County this afternoon to see if the foliage had gotten any more colorful than it had been during last week’s outing, but although there were a few more “reds” and “yellows” on the hillsides there were also a lot fewer leaves hanging on the trees. As I made the steady “climb” from Damascus to Konnarock, I noticed that “Straight Branch” was little more than a huge pile of dry boulders in many places with the ground around them littered with fallen leaves. The hot, dry summer has left our streams, rivers and ponds either empty or pretty close to it, and it has also induced the maple and oak leaves to simply fall from the trees with the slightest breeze or light rain – not a good omen for the photographers among us!
The Appalachians are usually quite spectacular this time of year, but I’m afraid that the autumn of 2007 is going to be a rather ”blah” one. I do hope I’m proven wrong though, and enough “turned” leaves will decide to hang around for us leaf peepers to get some pretty decent pictures. If not, I guess there’s always next year.