Sunday, October 25, 2009

Here today...... gone tomorrow.......or the next day!

My squirrel seems to be pretty pleased with himself, capturing so much water. Maybe he is happy that it has finally quit raining for a while.



The Minnesota birch started to drop leaves two days ago. I could sit in my living room and look out and see yellow leaves dropping, straight down, like weights. The very next day it started to rain, and things changed with this tree.





It took two days of really heavy rain but we ended up with four plus inches of rain. I know from the past that the birch can loose all of it's leaves over night, when it is raining.




To prove me wrong, it took two days. As you can see below, I have a beautiful yellow carpet of leaves.




The birch came from a ditch in northern Minnesota as a small five foot red-barked stick of a tree.
It should have been in the late seventies. It has to be over thirty years old by now. I get a lot of compliments on it. One neighbor down the street stopped and smiled and said you got that from up north. Fortunately it is the only birch in town so it hasn't contracted the dreaded disease that is taking out groves of the them up north. I hope some bird doesn't migrate through and bring the disease to it.

6 comments:

Kris said...

Hi Larry. Why haven't I visited your blog before? Silly me! Lots to see and read. LOL I have birch trees too and love the bright yellow leaves all over my lawn now. When the wind blows them off the trees it's like watching lemon snow...

Tom - 7th Street Cottage said...

What a lovely color. The maples here can lose their leaves just that fast too. They go from golden yellow to bright red to bare in less than a week. You got a lot more rain than we did too. Two days of clouds and overcast conditions brought us 1/8" of actual rain. Been that way all summer. Don't forget to mulch those leaves. :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Larry,
That little squirrel rain measurer is neat! I haven't seen on before, & your yellow birch is a beauty! My lawn is a carpet of red right now. I've got a large Japanese maple in my front yard.... I've got to get to some raking. :)

Linda said...

I'm just back from the land of the birches further north in Scotland, but it was raining so much that I didn't take many photos. Your birch has certainly had a leaf dump.

Far Side of Fifty said...

What a beautiful tree..and I am pleased it does not have the Bronze Birch Borer disease! It loks wonderful in your yard:)

The Retired One said...

We see some healthy birches still here, but yes, the dreaded disease killed many of them.
I love the bright yellow of the birch's trees in the fall too. Thanks for the "time lapse" pictures, it is very interesting to see the difference a few days makes!