Misty early morning sunbeams through my nearly naked trees this morning.

Let me preface this post by first saying that we have had amazing weather for the past few days. Sunny, warm (60’s and yesterday 70!) and low humidity. Just glorious! It’s hard to imagine that we had 19 inches of snow a week and a half ago!

The time change is wreacking havoc with our inner clocks. The dogs too. Mia is not happy either as Rick realized when he took her to work with him on Monday that she doesn’t like driving in the dark. We’ll still take her out on nice weekend days, but she’ll have to stay home at night now, tucked into her cozy warm garage.

Autumn is usually so beautiful here in New Jersey. That’s why it’s such a let-down this year. In the 5 1/2 years since we’ve lived here, this has been the worst autumn in the way of color. As you can see by the photo above, our trees are pretty much done. Whatever they had left in them before the big snow (and it wasn’t much) is gone now.

They never really changed this year. The leaves curled up and fell off. Some trees did try but their colors were not vibrant, just dull and rusty looking. It must have been all that rain we had. Like a house plant that’s been over-watered the leaves just fell off.

The two big oak trees are putting on a brave show in the front yard now. Still, you can see how spotted the leaves are.

The burning bush hedge is pretty showy too despite the fact that many of its branches were bent to the ground with snow not that long ago.

I love it when the sun is shining through the leaves. It also cheers me up, like it’s saying, “C’mon Lynne, autumn hasn’t been so bad—look at me!”

Our yard needs attention this weekend in getting all the leaves picked up. Johnny is back now from the Deere Hospital. I hope he rested up. He’s got a lot of work ahead of him! After some rain showers tomorrow, the weekend looks bright and beautiful.