Bye, Bye, Fall!

 

 The human soul is slow to discover the real excellence of things given to us by a bountiful Creator, and not until the shadows of death begin to gather around the object that we love, do we see its worth and beauty. Autumn is the dim shadow that clusters about the sweet, precious things that God has created in the realm of nature. While it robs them of life, it tears away the veil and reveals the golden gem of beauty and sweetness. Beauty lurks in all the dim old aisles of nature, and we discover it at last.

 ~Northern Advocate

The landscape looks as though it's been left outside too long in the sun. A wintery blast has faded the world like a pair of well-worn blue jeans.

Just a few weeks ago, colors seemed to glow from the inside out.

Leaves hung on tenaciously to their lifeblood until they danced like butterflies in the wind to the ground.

 

Just a week ago, a golden luster of sun-kissed leaves still dressed up the brown landscape of pasture grasses like a glittering ring set against a Tiffany-blue-jewel-box of a sky.

Though fall always comes to Central Kansas, each year is as individual as a fingerprint - a reflection of weather patterns and rain gauge totals.

But each is beautiful in its own way.

These are some of the "leftovers" from fall photos I've shot. Though the freezing temperatures have zapped the color out of the landscape, I love each season on a Kansas farm.

Click on the links for the more vibrant photos of fall in Central Kansas - from Quivira National Wildlife Refuge and from Dillon Nature Center.