I consulted with my local tree expert, and she thinks these trees outside my office window are American Sycamores. There seem to be quite a few in Highland Park.
I was attracted to them because of the round seed balls.
The above is a photo of the seed ball, before we got white snow now gracing Highland Park.
The trunks have this distinct peeling bark. This particular tree is on Abbott Street.
Same tree as above, but the sky was bluer.
A tree of red berries is around the corner from my home. I first noticed it for a Sky Watch post.
One of the members of our local Shade Tree Advisory Committee identified the tree for me as a hawthorn tree. She called me from the tree and said, “Leora, did you see the thorns on this tree?” I hadn’t, but in the above photo I circled in pale yellow where the thorns are, close to the tree and not obvious.
Another way she could tell it was a hawthorn was from the bark.
I had just learned about hawthorn berries from Mimi’s post. It seems that they are edible!
For more photos of my tree, go to my Flickr account. There’s another hawthorn berry tree in Highland Park on South Fourth Avenue.
My neighbors had their house painted red recently, an appealing color next to the foliage in their backyard. The blue garage, white umbrella and deck belong to the neighbors further down.
The leaves of their dogwood tree, that I photographed last spring, looks so pretty with its red autumn hues.
Wednesday seems like a good day to put up a post for Ruby Tuesday!
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We went canoeing on the Delaware River between New York State and Pennsylvania. Most of us had fun. My daughter did not. She wanted the gentle course we chose last summer, the one my boys, who are ages 11 and 13, thought boring.
Can you see the tiny red canoe in the distance? Halfway my eldest son and I switched, so he did not have to yell at me to stop taking pictures. It is not easy nor advisable to be the one steering a canoe and taking photos at the same time. On the second half, I sat in the front, my husband in the back, my six-year-old daughter in the middle. Every time we crossed some rapids, she would shriek: “Oar! You have to oar!” I did try to tell her the proper word is paddle, but that didn’t interest her much.
Finally, at some point she refused to do the section of rapids ahead of us. So daughter and I hiked the side while husband did the short stretch of rapids. He waited for us on the bottom. I used this as an opportunity to photograph:
I apologize for including the above photo with no red on a Ruby Tuesday post. I’m sure you will forgive me. If I squint at the stems, I can see slivers of red. Can you?
Yesterday in my haste I mistakenly deleted a favorite red leaf photo from the camera. Has this happened to you? Do you then walk around with a pang in your heart for a day? (quick, someone send me to the nearest photoblogger’s anonymous meeting). This one with its signs of approaching autumn will have to do:
We passed under a bridge with a red dotted sign:
And I didn’t notice what this sign said until we were right on top of the diver, I just saw red:
To participate in Ruby Tuesday, post a photo (or more) with a little red or a LOT of red. Then visit Mary the Teach at http://workofthepoet.blogspot.com/ to submit your link.