Sunday, October 12, 2014

FALL IS YELLOW

Fall is yellow here at PFHQ.
The swamp sunflowers grow slowly taller all summer long signaling, as they grow, the return to school and the fall. These are short ones in the photo.
 I've had them grow 12 feet tall in the garden soil.

Coreopsis blooms mostly down by the pond, but this lone wolf was living in the sandy, dry highlands in the back.

Some of the yellows signal the end of a long hot summer of rampant growth, like this wild muscadine leaf.
"I'm done here, hope you enjoyed the grapes..."

The Golden Orb Weavers, the big girls, are mostly gone or barely hanging on. Their personal yellows have faded, but the web still glows golden in the fall light.

The real yellow stars here at PFHQ are the Golden Asters, a native wildflower that grows thicker and with more blossoms than any plant nursery product I've planted here.
... and they do it in white, semi-sterile, almost beach sand.

Huge sprays and rampant clusters of these asters line the trail that Coquina, Bear, and I use multiple times a day.
We'll miss them when they are all done.
They are tall and therefore great to pee on if you are a dog, and as for me, I just enjoy the sight of them.
The Cow Lily, or Spatterdock that lives in the cattle trough garden pond has poked a bizarre yellow flower up into the air where the pollinators work.
No honey bees of course, but the natives are still here.
We natives hang on.
Only yellow for a short time, and already fading, this baby gopher tortoise was being nose snuffled like a scaly hockey puck by Bear and Coquina before I rescued it.
No harm done.
This yellow is more a sign of pleasant work done last spring than a sign of fall, but it is yellowish, it is fall, ... so it counts.
I held it just long enough to take a few photos and then ushered the tiny tortoise over to the welcoming dark safety of an active gopher burrow.

                   A little tap and this bit of yellow went dark.

That seems fitting, because as yellow Fall fades here in North Florida,  Blue-Purple Fall will take over.
I see signs of it along the roadsides and here at PFHQ.
Another story soon enough ...

5 comments:

Spirula said...

Your Golden Orb Weaver pic is good. I've tried here in Gainesville, but maybe it is my age or camera, can't get a pic that good. What camera do you use for these pics? I have a hard time keeping it steady after my auto-focus beeps (Nikon, Coolpix L810).
(Maybe I should not have lent out my tripod...it could be that.)

Julie Zickefoose said...

I love this post from start to finish, the composition of the swamp sunflowers with PFHQ; the golden orb weaver, the rampant and peeable golden asters. But I'm sorry, I'm curled into a ball over that surprise baby gopher. The thought that somehow these creatures were able to bump into one another, lay eggs that didn't get dug up by raccoons or skunks or eaten by snakes, and produce that tiny jewelbox of cuteness seems just too wonderful to be true. And that it gets to live at PFHQ under your family's loving eye, well, it doesn't get much better than that. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful yellows you have there. So many life forms and so many shades. Lovely.

Pablo said...

I love these color essays.

Sayre said...

The first picture lovely with the yellow against your blue house! Love all the pictures - I haven't been by in a while. Life has gotten too hectic by far and lazy things like dropping by blogs has taken a backseat for a while. Nice to visit again!