The Last Smiles of the Year …

They came dressed in black and red, hard hats, visors and ear protectors; carrying chain saws, ropes, sacks, rakes, leaf blowers and ladders.  The day had arrived – the Willow tree trembled in anticipation of being denuded, shorn – the branches that once reached for the sky would soon be gone, shredded and pulped to oblivion.

One last picture taken as a reminder of  how much it had grown and how beautiful it looked in the early morning sun.

They toiled and tarried until dusk threatened; sawing, chopping, carefully lowering branches, taught ropes  and the coarse rasping of the saw – at last the garden was silent the chain saw stilled, dangling from the woodsman’s waist – it’s work was done – the hand-saw sheathed.  Out came the rakes and sacks, evidence of destruction removed.  Branches, leaves and twigs dragged to the shredder, the noise of the machine echoing round the village on this calm, sunny day.

 

The next morning we see the results as the curtains are drawn back – the mist across the fields highlights the bare raw stumps – all that is left of the poor old Willow that had provided somewhere shady to sit in summer, somewhere for the birds to perch waiting for us to fill the feeders.  I shall miss the swishing of the branches when the wind is high and the changing colour of the leaves as the season turns.

It will grow back – I know that – but for now I will have to get used to the change of  light in the garden – seeing more of the sky and the view beyond.

--ooOoo--

Whilst out and about in the village later in the day everything was bathed in sunlight giving a golden glow  as the light filtered through the trees

“ I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne”

“There is something incredibly nostalgic and significant about the annual cascade of autumn leaves.” ~ Joe L. Wheeler

“Autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons” ~ Jim Bishop

“Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn – that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness – that season which has drawn from every poet worthy of being read some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling.” ~ Jane Austen

“The leaves fall, the wind blows, and the farm country slowly changes from the summer cottons into its winter wools” ~ Henry Beston

All in all a good week

– we can  see clearly through the windows now - some that were suffering from condensation have been replaced – the sun is shining again today – it is mild and the sky is clear – a good day for gardening and thinking happy thoughts.

See you next week – same time, same place.