9/19/09 – The leaves seem slow to change this year. Amid an unseasonably warm September, with local highs for the first nineteen days five degrees warmer than last year, some of us are wondering where the fall colors are. At this time last season I accompanied a visiting friend on a nearby “leaf peeper” trail and the maples were practically burning with brilliant reds, oranges and yellows. Yesterday I stopped near that trail to take a picture of the turning leaves, and it left me hoping, more than anything, that the best may be yet to come. – Lee

The hillside in the background is just beginning to be shaded with red.

This vista of the Temperance River valley shows just a spark of the colors that will brighten it soon.