Fall Foliage in VA

This summer we've suffered from a drought in the region. This explains the lack of posts all summer where we usually show off our garden produce. The tomatoes barely made anything, the peppers suffered from gross malformations that invited fungal infections, and the corn never did make a single edible ear (though the deer scat in the lawn indicates something found the ears edible), despite our efforts to water religiously. Luckily the grapes are fairly tolerant of the heat and dry conditions, so we have made one batch of "great grape" jelly again.

Because of the drought, the trees were shedding their leaves in July. People were raking green leaves up off their lawns all August, as the trees tried to stave off the water loss. We didn't expect anything special this fall, since according to the experts, excellent fall color is determined by good genes and lots of water during the year.


















Apparently they still have some things to figure out. The peak was a little over a week ago, and it was one of the most colorful years in memory. Here's a few pics from a walk we did in Jefferson Nt'l Forest, where the trees looked more like fireworks than trees.






















For those of you interested in camera stuff, the walk was towards midday so the pics washed out in some directions. I used the "boost color" option once to make those more true to life. I think they were more vivid than that, but I didn't want to be accused of making up stories about how amazing the colors are! :-)