I had a late night last night and woke up this morning, without an alarm. It wasn't enough sleep for my liking, but I sat up and had "that feeling". Everything was very very quiet but it was light out. 7:20am. I peeked through the blinds, and sure enough: the first snow cover.

  I really dread this time of year. The end of autumn and the start of......... well, here in Saskatchewan, 6-8 months of jaw clenching hahaha. It's much too early to have snow on the ground and it will melt, come back, melt, come back...and then stay.

  The GOOD thing about this time of year, and mornings like these is: wonderful evenly diffused light. Calm. Quiet. Excellent days for a walk in the park before heading to the factory. Here's my favourite image from this morning. Nothing special to go past it every day on a walk or jog or bike ride but when the early morning light is like this, the colours come out of the autumn foliage, like they are trying so hard and gasping for one last capillary-filling breath before they give up their colours for the season.

Reflecting on Autumn   Not a perfectly still reflection this morning, but the frame just says so much. The snow has arrived. The grass is dying.  The beavers have been busy.  The leaves have fallen and are still in their death throes. The colours are pushing out.  The water was filled with ducks this morning, none of whom wanted to swim into frame to allow me to tell the story of the ripples; they were instead content to just swim around politely OUT of frame like they could see my zoom range.

  

  I also tend to stop and look at the things low to the ground when the first snows come. Low angles are always interesting and we see things differently. For instance, the angle of the leaf and how the grass is keeping it up despite the fresh snow on top.  And the detail of the snow crystals on the edges of the leaf and stem.

  Well, I predicted we wouldn't have any snow until mid-November. So let's see if it fades away for awhile and no real accumulation comes to stay until then.  Undoubtedly, we will have more snow than last year. But that will hopefully make for some WINTER PHOTOS that I didn't really get last year.

  Tis the season... enjoy the final days of Autumn.