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Leaf Snow

Winter 2002-2003 Newsletter

We had our first hard freeze of the fall season last night. The grassy areas are all white with frost; our outside thermometer read 22 degrees when I looked out on the back deck about 7 a.m. after ambling downstairs this morning.

What’s most dramatic is that some trees take this event as a clear signal that it’s time to shed their summer foliage. “Today-is-the-day”, “do-it-now” seems their triggered response.

The bitternut hickories in the back yard are in the biggest hurry, generating a snow shower of yellow-leafed flakes making silly circles to the ground with no assist from the wind. The walnuts have already released most of their leaves but now seem desperate to shed those remaining.

The leaves from the basswoods drop like large chunks of brown snow sloughed from their branches. Even the yellow-green silver maples out front and the peach-colored sugar maples on the side are beginning to show “measurable accumulation” beneath their canopies.

The big oaks in back, however, are made of sterner stuff; they have shed hardly a leaf, except those loosed by the squirrels harvesting acorns for their winter cache. The burr oaks and white oaks are a mottled green and brown but still fully clothed.

The red oak though still bright green will eventually turn reddish-brown before surrendering its summer attire. The leaves of the shorter ironwood trees have already browned and shriveled, but will remain attached to the tree all winter long providing much needed variety and color to the black and white winter landscape.

It’s not till the spring juices begin to flow once again that the ironwoods decide it’s time to abandon their old summer suits. I love the color and variety of fall. But all those darned snow flake leaves just lie there waiting for me and my rake and shovel. I think I would prefer a blizzard that only takes digging out once.

—Randy Downing