End of Autumn

For about ten days I've been saying to myself, This is the peak! There were eye popping displays of orange, red, gold. I was driving, I didn't have my camera. I looked hard and I remember them. That was the best I could do. Couldn't have stopped on a busy highway or street to jump out of car so I just memorized. There were sudden strokes of color -- no wide vistas because wide vistas exist here only as seascapes, we are relatively flat, there are no long views. Today I went for a walk and I'm satisfied that I got this picture of red and yellow. It was windy, other shots were blurry because I could not find a quiet moment when leaves weren't in motion. Of course many are falling, tops of trees, especially are denuded. Soon the entire tree will be and we will have winter's landscape.
I don't know what this grassy plant is called, it's an ornamental grass as tall as I am. Parts of it's fronds are going to a star shaped seed head, other parts haven't matured that much yet. It is very graceful, especially in the wind.
This was dawn this morning with Xes in the sky. I glanced out just before the horizontal line got it's shot of pink. By the time I could find where I put the camera, it had gone from seashell pink to almost shocking pink. And soon it was gone -- in the time it took to pour coffee from the pot into the cup and go back to the table by the sliding glass door. Everything is rushing to disappear, to remind us that growing things are emphemeral.