The leaves have started to change in Germany. That’s a very big deal to this Texas girl because where I come from the leaves don’t bother to fall off the trees until spring. We rake live oak leaves from February till April! “Fall color” in San Antonio means the annual change of store window displays from orange and black Halloween kitsch to red and green Christmas kitsch. It makes the heart beat faster, yes, but not necessarily from joy.
But here… Real color. Leaf color! And more is coming!
At this time of year, window boxes start to change to autumn displays, and people begin to decorate with colorful gourds and pumpkins. There are pumpkin festivals in the area, too. I just missed the Hitscherhof Pumpkin Farm Festival, which is usually the fourth weekend in September and is lots of fun in a beautiful setting. But we may still go out there for a pumpkin or two–the farm boasts over thirty kinds of gourds.
This is also the time of year for morning fog and mist. The most beautiful mist! Knife-thin layers of white gauze float over the fields in the morning. When you drive through them, you feel like an airline pilot. We first arrived in Germany in September, and I remember how astonished we were by this. We thought that maybe it would continue year-round, but it does that only in the river valleys. Driving near the Rhine can get quite depressing, in fact, because a haze can hang over the countryside from morning till night. But the fog near Kaiserslautern is a thing of beauty. In this picture, it makes even the power lines look ghostly and elegant.
Photos taken in September and October, 2011, in locations in the Rineland-Palatinate, Germany. Text and photos copyright 2011 by Clare B. Dunkle.