Well and truly fall

Today was the first day of fall and it well and truly felt like fall.

It was windy and briskly chilly.  The sun was shining and the sky was a brilliant blue with a mixture of white fluffy clouds and heavier gray clouds.

But most of all, overnight some of the trees, mostly a specific type of maple, started to turn an orangey red.  I wish our trees -- the few that we have left -- would turn a gorgeous crimson or deep orange.  But alas, our maples are the type that have an anemic gold fall foliage. 

I used to think I wouldn't mind raking leaves so much if I had beautifully colored leaves to rake.  The trees at my childhood home were sycamores with very large, ugly brown leaves -- not fun at all to rake.  At this point it doesn't much matter because G usually just mows the lawn a few times and the mower takes care of the leaves and creates a mulch of sorts for our flower beds.  Although since G announced today that the mower is officially dead, I may be raking leaves once again.