My life in Minnesota: Here comes fall

Fall officially starts on 22 September. Now it is time for color changes and the leaves to fall. I like to call the seasons as they are:

“Raking” in the fall season

“Shoveling” snow in the winter season

“Cleaning” the house in the spring season

“Watering” lawn and flowers in the summer season

Let's start with fall color viewing at my house and my neighborhood first.

My house

my boulevard

The leaves begin changing color starting from northern Minnesota, down to southern over the course of a few weeks. Typically the colors peak between mid September and early October in northern Minnesota, late September and early October in the central region, late September and mid October in the southern region including the Twin Cities, where I live. Unfortunately, the leaves then pile up all over my driveway and yard.

You know I really hate this time of the year “raking”, also it is not fun blowing my 150 foot long drive way a few times a week. I need to hook two set of power cables to my electric blower, as one is too short, and I need to rewind those power cables nicely after I am done. Fortunately, I was banned by my husband to make any bundles of the cables myself, as it looks messy. Good for me:p.

Our backyard

Our driveway

Did you ever wonder why leaves change color and then fall in the autumn? My understanding is that leaves are like food-making factories and filled with chlorophyll which gives the leaves their green color (trees store food during the summer). As the days get shorter and cooler in the winter, there is not enough light or water flow up from roots through branches and into the leaves caused food production stops, so do the leaves stop producing food. Then the leaves begin to fall off trees because the tree cuts off the water to the leaves.. It likes trees begin to shut down the factories in the fall to rest.
The chlorophyll disappears but other pigments that are also present in the leaves start to appear and reveal the beauty of fall color in the mixture of red, purple, orange and yellow.

I know that the process is more complex than that , for sure :)

Well those are reasons behind why leaves change color and fall off trees (from my understanding anyway), it is not that the nature just wants to tease us by making us rake the yard :)