Silver Maples

Sixteen. I counted them yesterday and yet I can hardly believe it. Sixteen medium to large silver maples on one plot of land less than an acre in size.

Silver maples are one of those "messy" trees, the kind that shed branches with each passing gust of summer wind and shed large leaves all fall, but they are also beautiful trees, covered in lichens, dotting our front lawn and lining our back yard on both sides with their golden leafed brilliance and delicate, swaying branches.

They are a haven for the birds. The mourning doves frolic in them trying to catch the eye of their mate during courting season. The chickadees take off and land from the low branches on their way back and forth from the feeders. The orioles hang nests like ornaments and sing sweet lullabies from the branches. The jays and cardinals hold noisy meetings high in the treetops. The catbirds tease our felines with their mocking calls heard always just around the next corner of the house.

Yesterday was a day for enjoying the autumn warmth and cleaning up the falling leaves our maple friends have left us on the front lawn. Earle and Shawn take turns raking up piles of golden treasure and carrying their bundles to the truck. Our silver maples' leaves now mingle with their cousins from other yards at the green dump. Other years they have been allowed to nestle into our brushy area in back of the house, but the carpet there is growing a bit thick, so off they went this year.

Soon the maples with be bare, they will don their winter snow coats and wait for spring when their energies can once again be put into making leaves, new leaves for another year's annual father-son raking in the golden sunlight of a perfect fall day.

Our lone Japanese maple glowing scarlet against the graying horizon of the late fall landscape

Percy, one of the blog's namesakes, just wanted to sit among the fallen leaves by the back deck and pose for his autumn photo shoot