The Best of the Color (Missed it by This Much)

I was drinking in the surroundings: 

air so crisp you could snap it with your fingers 

and greens in every lush shade imaginable 

offset by autumnal flashes of red and yellow. 

~Wendy Delsol, Stork

No, it wasn't this bad. There was some color left. But this photo only worked in black and white.

We hiked at the upper part of Miller Springs last week - me without a camera - so we had to come back. It was probably too early in the morning - with such bright sunshine, but it was the opportunity we had.

So we went back to try and capture some of the amazing color.

But we found we had missed most of it...the reds dulling in a week.

There are a few trails we will have to try on future walks. But the lower parts are flooded and hard to access.

The red oaks were particularly bright - Shumard Oaks, perhaps?

Possumhaw red berries

The reds were a little brighter. And some trees had dropped their leaves in the wind, rain, and cold of an intervening front.

Still, the valley was hanging on to some color.

It's called the Tennessee Valley, much of which is now under the lake.* These views are of the valley...

While behind the photographer is the flat limestone spillway for the dam. This limestone shelf reminds me of the limestone pavement of the Burren** (although those are more weathered).

A little of the boardwalk remains. I hope there will be a commitment to a new boardwalk for accessibility for all.

The nightshades are well-represented, both Buffalobur (here) and Silver-leaf.

Little blooms this late in the fall - Goldeneye?

We stopped here and I snapped this view as a reminder to wear good boots to avoid sore feet from the rough and irregular trails.

What might live here?

There is a debate about what this might be. I thought it was tyevine, but there was a suggestion that it might be Pearl Milkweed. I suppose I will have to come back and see.

DH will stand at the edge of the cliff. I will not.

I wonder if some of these are repeats. Whatever.

The berries are drawing a few birds as are the dead trees.

I've seen a few of these Red-bellied Woodpeckers over the last few days. This one did not cooperate.

A final shot as we headed to the car.

  
NOTES:


* According to the Texas State Historical Association: TENNESSEE VALLEY, TEXAS. Tennessee Valley was on the Leon River five miles northwest of Belton in northwestern Bell County. The community was founded in 1851 by a party of settlers who originated in the Tennessee valley and named the new settlement for their former home. The Tennessee Valley school had some seventy-two pupils in 1896. There was a commercial pecan orchard at Tennessee Valley in the 1920s, and in 1948 the community had two churches and two businesses. In the mid-1950s the site of the community was inundated by Lake Belton.

** http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/places/the_burren/burren_geology.htm