Is it all yellow?

I took my husband with me when I walked out to the prairie this morning. I couldn't resist having a photo to mark brilliant sunshine on such a mass of yellow flowers. And they are gorgeous!

"Are they all yellow?" David asked.  Sure looks like it, doesn't it? So far, they're all Black-eyed Susans, but more types of plants are close to blooming and they all look to be opening up yellow, too.  Or so it seems on first glance.

Just this week, I spotted the first Purple Coneflower. A single purple bloom standing amidst all that yellow. How brave. How beautiful.

Since most of the plants are quite tall - at least the ones that appear close to blooming, I pick my way through the prairie, generally looking up. I look down in a sometimes futile attempt not to step on plants I've been trying to nurture.

On one such downward glance, I spotted another dot of purple. A plant I had not seen before and did not know by name. The distinct blossom of Purple Prairie Cover was easy to identify in my prairie flower book. Tucked in amongst the taller prairie plants (look closely; can you see it?), the clover - only a foot tall - would have been easy to miss if not for its purple flower.

This walk in the prairie reinforced an axiom I learned about nature during a walk in Alaska: it pays to look up, look down, look all around. The walk in Alaska involved a moose. But that's another story.

Strands of gold

The trees outside my office window are devoid of leaves. Even our sugar maple finally gave up. It's brilliant yellow leaves turned brown and now cover the ground with an ankle-deep, brittle blanket.

No denying it. We're marching steadily toward the inevitable black and white of winter.

The only tree on our property still wearing fall color is our weeping willow. It, too, is losing leaves fast, but for now it glitters yellow in the sun. Having never had a willow tree before, I don't really know what constitutes a 'branch' or a 'leaf.' Is each long, weeping thread one leaf? With each leaflet part of a larger whole? Or are the threads branches in training and the leaflets true leaves?

The willow tree has been an ongoing source of thought-provoking lessons. I'll probably look up the answer to this leaf question sometime over the winter. When the landscape is black and white. I may even draw some larger life lesson from the answer.

Right now, I'm enjoying the idea that the willow tree looks as though it is dripping with strands of gold, each leaf a link in the multitude of chains that hang from the branches. So much jewelry on a human would be gaudy, an ostentatious display. On our willow tree, though, the display is a last colorful fall display carrying me into winter.