Each year, at home in Victoria, Minnesota, our family enjoys the various seasons of mature maple trees growing naturally in our area and in our yard under the tender watchfulness, and occasional wrath, of Mother Nature and Father Time.  We've been part of their seasons as they have been part of ours for over 30 years now.  We've tapped and tasted hundreds of gallons of their sweet maple sap turned into syrup.  We've watched their tiny buds grow into fine green foliage and then rich autumnal fare.  When they decide to undress, which seems always too soon, their colorful wardrobe is buried beneath them on the forest floor and soon covered with a soft cloth of powdery snowflakes. Eventually they don a new crystalline costume that can be more brilliant  than diamonds in the sky.  Is one season more beautiful than the next?

Hello, Autumn at 7222 Lilac Lane.  Mind if I run up your driveway?

Gosh, you're gorgeous, but whatever did you do with our summer?

Your silhouette is especially magnificent, dear Autumn, against heaven's high sky.

Thank you for making our backyard private and pleasing and pretty.  You are so generous.

Were you thinking of the past or the future as you watched us put away our outdoor furniture?

Dear Autumn, Have you ever wanted to see what you look like from inside our porch?

Are you peeking at me peeking at you?

We seldom see this view of your colorful creation because we don't have a hammock swinging between any of the trees in our backyard. 

Dear Autumn, Thank you for leaving our wildflowers blooming after the First Frost.  How we've coming to enjoy them after Mother Nature took so many of your brothers and sisters from us in the Spring Storm of 1998.

'Twas Father Time that gave us time to come to appreciate the holes in our sky.  Without those holes, there'd be no bloomin' wildflowers!

Comin' around the bend again, I marvel again at your majesty, dear Autumn.

Is that Schutz Lake that we see near the bottom of our driveway, peeking through the hem of your sensational skirt?

Oops!  I forgot something.  Give me a minute as I run back up our hill.

Goodbye, Saint Francis.  I'll be bringing you indoors soon, where you can sit by the fire with me on cold winter evenings.