• Friday-What'sUP July 17 - 05:34 am

Paul Trautman captured what much of the ground here UP North is looking like about now. I took last weekend off to make some wood for the winter months, when a different color blanket will be covering the ground. And this weekend, Mary switched days so I can get my leaves raked before deer camp. It shouldn't take as much time as the wood pile did, unless of course I get the notion to pile them up like the youngsters in the second photo. I bet Brita Haapala caught them just before the moment they decided it might be fun to jump right in. I'm going to have to give Brita a call to see if I can get these two to give me a hand!

jump in boys!

Great picture!

We have a pile of leaves about 4 feet high, and my kids love jumping off our stone wall into them!

We have the glorified rodents below the bridge too!!!
;-)

Reminds me of when I was a kid - so much fun to jump in!

The squirrel that is!!!!!!!!.....LOL

I'd love to jump into that pile of leaves myself. McLains Park is a nice place to walk on the trail and kick the leaves as you're walking. Sure reminds me of years ago. Put the winter clothes on and go.....nothing better for the mind and body.

By RD, Iowa on Friday, November 12, 2004 - 09:15 am:

Today's shots remind me of one of my favorite fall pictures from the Pasty Cam archives:

RD, it was Jeff Buckett who contributed that photo back in 2001.

Great pictures. Paul's would make a great jigsaw puzzle. Anyone at pasty thought of turning some of the pictures into jigsaws to benefit Still Waters? The stones on June 15 would be another great one. Actually, all the pasty pictures would be!

Thanks, Brita, always love the shots of your beautiful, industrious kids.

I hope this is not off-topic. Can anyone figure out why, when most of us need exercise, many people choose to use those leaf-blowers, polluting the quiet of many a day?

Hi everyone, it is a beautiful day in the Copper Country. Here is a snap I took the other day at Haven Falls in the County Park at Lac LaBelle. Always one of my favorite spots on my little Keweenaw 'circle tours' when I need some serenity time.

ert, GA
When you are 65 years old you will understand. Also, you will trade in the Yooper Scooper for a snow blower.

ditto snow blowers unless you live in a high-snow area! I go out with my scoop and move the 3 to 5 inches of snow we typically get in half the time my neighbors are out with their noisy, gas-fume smelling snow blowers!

Dave, what happened to your picture?

Just had to resize a few kbytes...

I remember making leaf piles as a child. Oh, the smell of the leaves was the best part of it. If I close my eyes and think about it, I can smell them. What a gift.

Dave, thanks for the nice look at one of my favorite places, too!

Brita, you have your own clean-up crew! I was sorry to hear about your grandfather.

Dave, thank you for taking a photo of our "front yard". Our family's camp is on the hill behind the falls. We don't get a chance to see it at this time of year.

What's the blue smear in the top picture?

loved the picture of the falls....visited there and have snapshot of myself on the bridge....was so cool to see it here on the internet

Wondering, the blue "smear" is a little puddle of water peeking through the leaves. The water has a little "sheen" on the surface from decaying organic material...

Thanks Dave -

If I back away from the monitor, it does appear as water. But not so if I get close to the screen.
Perspective thing, I guess.

Ahh Autumn, from the Latin "autumnus", a thaumaturgic metamorphosis of nature's canvas. A glorious juncture of alpha and omega indeed. Kudos on the fine shot.

Wheatman

The shot of the kids buried in leaves reminds me of last weekend. My 5 year-old niece, Brianna, flopped down into a pile of leaves and made a "leaf angel".

Oh, Mr. Wheatman! Just when I think there are no words left, to discribe the unique qualities of the season, your inspiring vocabulary comes through.
The great Cherokee, Sequoyah, called written language,"Talking Leaves". He, no doubt, had this colorful autumn diplay in mind. There are so many beautiful leaves and so many exciting words to express that beauty. I'm glad you know some of them.
Thanks, to all the photographers, for the playful romp. Have a great day.

We used to rake up maple leaves and then burn them in the fall. We would also wrap apples in aluminum foil, throw them into the leaf pile and dig them out of the ashes when the fire burned out. oh they tasted so good...

Thank you so much for the compliments on the picture of the leaf pile. The kids are pretty good at getting all of them in a pile, but of course, they're also very good at spreading them back out. I loaded up the pictures of them jumping into the pile in my album. Check it out. And Toivo, feel free to have them over to take care of your leaves. :)

In an attempt to do "creative clean up" my son and I reversed the position of leaves and bags. He got inside the pile and filled the bags from there. We had fun and I got help.

One thing I would like to add to the fall leaf raking season. At home in Calumet, every year it was a job or joy to rake all the leaves. Now here in New Jersey no one ever rakes their leaves, they are blown and piled without a thought about them at all. Most of the time people are hired to do the blowing, doesn't that leave out the fun of the chore! I miss it!

Childhood memories of the smell of burning leaves; There is no other smell quite like it. What a shame today that most cities have ordinances against burning due to quality of air issues. Just "progress" I guess.

ERT from Georgia - There are still some of us who like to rake leaves and enjoy the exercise. The only drawback these days is the decidedly un-Christian thoughts we entertain toward the people whose leaf blowers shriek and howl and generally render the air unfit for human ears.

Keep on raking!

There is someone up the road from me tonight burning leaves on his gravel drive. The smoke is thick and drifting downhill all over the neighborhood. I can't breathe outside. It's a nice smell in small amounts, but there are good reasons why we dont burn them any more. I spent last Saturday night in the ER with asthma and would rather do something more fun this weekend. Also it's a waste of good potential compost.

Please contact the webmaster with any questions you might have....thanks!

Theresa from just below the bridge, I would call
city hall or the police and report the burning of
leaves. There are areas here that will not allow
the burning of leaves and people doing such are
subject to fines.

Therese: I understand totally. when I lived in my old house under 60+ yr old oaks, we had no choice but to rake and burn. (We did not have a leaf blower!) Have always loved the burning-leaf smell. But allergy-related breathing problems have caught up with me lately, too. Earlier, I would not have understood.

This is the same as dave's about 5 weeks ago

"Thaumaturgic" = Greek for 'wonder + work', something magical or miraculous. Thank you, Mr. Wheatman, I've heard it said, "Any day you learn something new is not wasted." Today I learned a new word! And I agree wholeheartedly about the magic change from summer to fall.

Dave of Laurium and Steve. Those are great looking pictures. Our leaves are just changing color here. I love the brilliant yellow of the ginko biloba trees whose leaf looks like a fan, or the golden aspen, or the various green to red to orange to yellow of the liquid amber all at the same time. It has a leaf similar to the maple.

Thank you Paul for the wonderful album.

Steve, WI ... nice pic, I think I was actually leaning against the tree that barely frames the left edge of your photo when I took my pic. Thinking about deer hunting with my camera this year, probably have better luck that with a gun the past years. Maybe I could find that ever-elusive "thirty-point buck" Da Yoopers talk about on their album.

Wha? I don't tink it's da yoopers dat did da turddy point buck, did dey?

Holy wah! It was the group Bananas At Large dat did "Da Tirdy Point Buck" You know dat!!!!

chuck & MTU,cali...love the way you talk!

Glad to hear there are other leaf-rakers around. And I agree w/ those who don't burn -- unneeded air pollution and a huge waste of marvelous compost is right!

And, by the way, I am not too far from 65 but need the exercise more than ever.