Autumn at Sunrise

As the first rays of sunlight were beginning to penetrate the darkness of my back yard yesterday morning, the glorious color of these oak trees was unmistakable. It was actually a little darker when I took this photo, but the camera "corrected" for it and made the shot look brighter. Notice how all the trees around the edges of the shot are still showing darker, green leaves that have not yet taken on their autumn colors.

The oak tree in this second shot, made a short while later than the first shot, is in the neighbor's yard. This tree is easily visible from my driveway whenever I walk down to check the mailbox. It is such a big, beautiful tree!

This is the same neighbor who had one of the most glorious maples in the entire area, but cut it down a couple of years ago (I wrote about it here, once). I never figured out why they cut the tree — whether it was in danger of falling, or was diseased, or if it was just too much shade, or producing too many leaves to clean up each year. The neighborhood is not as pretty without it, though. This is that maple, in the following photo from several years ago, sporting its gorgeous yellow leaves!

Finally, here is a photo made just a few minutes ago, showing the beginnings of first light appearing in the east from my front yard this morning.