Wind and Leaves

We had a very windy day and  night over the weekend. I woke on Saturday morning to a sound like critters racing thunderously across my roof, but it was just tree debris being blown around. I took a look outside and saw the tops and branches of my Douglas firs sashaying like a square dancer. Lots of smaller branches came down in the beds, and copious amounts of needles and cones.

I saw that the wind had blown all the turning leaves off most of my deciduous trees and shrubs, including the bright orange and yellow foliage from my Hamamelis that just a few days ago was glowing like a lit lamp in the sunshine (See pictures here). I threw on some clothes and ran out to gather them up, then spread them out on my kitchen counter to dry off.

And take pictures, of course.

I decided to arrange some of them on a piece of 8X11 printer paper, taping down the stem end and layering them.

Taken with the camera

The same arrangement of leaves taken with the scanner

After scanning them, I carefully removed them from the piece of paper, so that I could leave them artfully strewn across one of the bureaus in my guest bedroom.

And I couldn't help noticing when I was outside picking up the leaves in the beginning, that my now-naked Hamamelis has lots of flower buds, which bodes well for the tree in late winter. (Last year there were three flowers.) I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all these flower buds open.

Just one cluster -- there are lots more!