October 3, 2009. Western Head, N.S. Autumn.

Every year we know it will happen, but every year it comes as such a surprise. Memory is faulty. The color of the trees is always so much more beautiful than I remember from last year. A curve on the road bringing yet another vista of red and orange and yellow into view seems new and different. I am sure I have seen these colored leaves before, yet every year I am caught unawares by the vividness of the view. In my minds eye I recall the bright red of the maple trees in Ontario in Autumn and in Maryland the orange of the large oak trees are gorgeous but the quiet charm of the fall colors in Nova Scotia all seem unexpected to me. Perhaps I think of the trees here as primarily evergreen, but in the Fall when the vivid colors burst out I am remained that there are lots more than evergreen trees in Nova Scotia.

The woods are beautiful right now. Every day the leaves get a bit brighter. And with my flawed memory, the leaves seem even more dramatic than last year. It is one of those events that occurs every year, yet each time arrival of the colored leaves seems to come as a surprise and a great joy, perhaps a bit like Christmas!!