AND HERE I THOUGHT IT WAS JUST PRETTY

A Japanese Maple from my yard.

I have always loved fall. Crisp air, impossibly blue skies, fires in the fireplace, football and the beautiful changing leaves. The leaves are changing beautifully right now in my part of Southeast Iowa. I'll try to take some photos in the next couple of days and post them here. The fall colors are one of those things that even the most grumpy of people tend to enjoy, but have you ever thought much about why the colors occur. I really hadn't given it more than a passing thought, choosing instead to just enjoy them. I did know that individual trees have certain colors programmed into their DNA, but I never knew why. Today I read a fascinating article on Discovery Channel's internet site about how the brilliant colors are actually a survival mechanism that trees have evolved over millions of years to fight predator insects. And here I thought it was just pretty! Read about it here.