Leaves

The leaves this year were brilliant. I didn't get out and about much to take pictures, but take my word for it, they were gorgeous.

A few weeks ago, I was reading L M Montgomery's Golden Road and I can across this passage that I love--

"Maples are trees that have primeval fire in their souls. It glows out a little in their early youth, before the leaves open, in the redness and rosy-yellowness of their blossoms, but in summer it is carefully hidden under a demure, silver-lined greenness. Then when autumn comes, the maples give up trying to be sober and flame out in all the barbaric splendour and gorgeousness of their real nature."

This is a vine that overtakes trees and kills them. I don't know what it is. But it is beautiful in the fall. Even if it is strangling trees. Or at least I think it kills trees. Maybe it just grows on dying trees. 

The Almanzo Wilder homestead. 

More of the vines.