Thankfulness, Three

Picking up the theme of thankfulness, again...

I am thankful for the play of the seasons in this part of the world.  (With a possible asterisk against the name of Winter.) But autumn here can be very beautiful, and this year it is.  We have taken pride, municipally, in harbouring what is perhaps the last major stand of un-diseased American elms, here in Prairie Metropolis; and in our older neighbourhoods in the autumn there are still some wonderful "elm avenues" blazing with gold both above and (after a bit of leaf-fall), below.  

We don't have the kind of stands of maple that add so much colour to the Carolinian hardwood forests of eastern Canada -- but the Mountain Ash can muster up a pretty striking red, and there are some ornamental non-native plantings that also vary the yellow of poplars and the coniferous green.

Just at the moment we're promised some Indian summer days over the weekend -- sandal and shirtsleeve weather again and bright although low-angled sunshine.  (Come the winter solstice, the sun will rise a whole splendid eleven degrees above the southern horizon...LONG shadows.)

So even as we mentally batten everything down in the face of "what we are about to receive" meteorologically over the next six months -- there are days of great comfort and pleasure in the outdoor world, to lay to heart and to memory.

And for this I am thankful!