From Maple to Meacham

As I look out my window this mid-November morning, the late fall color is a solid pallette of gray. Clouds, mist, cold, the onrush of winter surrounds my home. It is a boon to be looking at the fall color photos taken three to four weeks ago during the short sunny interlude between the October monsoons.
A newspaper mention of Maple Grove had sent me there, and two more images here show the lovely golden forest and some of its accompaniments. Leaving there with a bit of light in the sky, I knew another preserve was on my way home, right here in Bloomingdale. A short stop there gave me my last fall color shots of 2009 and we will look at some in the next post.

Portrait of a Forest

Maple Grove has such a powerfully dense stand of maples that the sound of the roadway and the rest of the world falls away, and the fall color walker is surrounded by quiet and color. The second image here presented itself as an opportunity to take a semi-formal vignetted portrait of the yellow woods. As the vignette wound up in a stylized heart shape, I liked it all the more.
In the first image, a closeup of a leaf surrounded by the color of the maple forest and the spotlight of the late-afternoon sun offered the chance to turn out an image that became a semi-abstract look at the wonderfully-saturated color.
The next post will be the last at Maple Grove.

Leaves and Weeds

We have noticed at previous locations the beauty in individual leaves and in wild grasses' seed pods. Maple Grove has its assortment of such beauty as well as we see here.
Fall color can be a hillside of forest, a small stand of trees, an indvidual tree or a single leaf or plant. Fall color is beauty in any size. More in the next post.

Maples on Maple

On Maple Avenue in Downers Grove, the Forest Preserve is named Maple Grove. While the name of the street and the name of the preserve are the same, the fact is that the forest preserve is named for the trees it features rather than the street it faces. And the predominant type is the sugar maple.
Result? On a sunny October day, this preserve is the one where you will find many many yellow leaves, making the sunshine a deep gold throughout the forest. A powerful relaxing color presence that is the epitome of fall color.
More Maple Grove in the next post.