Autumn colors and the not-so-pink Big Pink.

Looking south towards downtown from the pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks next to Union Station. I thoroughly enjoy looking at The Big Pink, no matter the perspective, even when it's not so pink. I have no idea why all of those posts and cables are on top of that building. Anybody know? I took this photo on October 25, 2008, while on the bridge walk.

Rainy autumn in my neighborhood, No. 6

On Halloween, I took the photo of the street that runs beside my apartment building through the windshield of my Zipcar. I was stopped at the intersection, nothing dangerous going on with the camera and the car. The other three photos are ones that I had taken last Sunday on my short walk.

Rainy autumn in my neighborhood, No. 4

From nearby fully-opened blossoms, the scent of roses wafted in the wind. But not from these rosebuds. Possible late-bloomers? My guess, they'll become never-bloomers. Hmmm. Can you become a never?
 

The red door and white trim at Albertina Kerr's headquarters becomes the best background possible for this red rose bud.
 

I like the peachy orange and bright yellow rose bud contrasted with the dark green leaves and maroon stems. No color alterations here. These photos are just as they came out of my iPhone.



A fading pink rose bud seems the perfect lead-in for this poem I found on the Internet:

When the Rose is Faded by Walter de la Mare

When the rose is faded,
Memory may still dwell on
Her beauty shadowed,
And the sweet smell gone.

That vanishing loveliness,
That burdening breath,
No bond of life hath then,
Nor grief of death.

'Tis the immortal thought
Whose passion still
Makes the changing
The unchangeable.

Oh, thus thy beauty,
Loveliest on earth to me,
Dark with no sorrow, shines
And burns, with thee.

Rainy autumn in my neighborhood, No. 1

Near my apartment this afternoon, water stands at the junction of a sloped driveway and a street. Brightly colored leaves float in the water until wet through and through--then they sink.

I got off the bus to take this photo before they all blew off, they lit up the vista.

Wednesday, November 3, I decided to get off the bus and walk back east onto the Hawthorne Bridge. Too many beautiful trees had gone un-photographed by my trusty Nikon D50. Not wanting to be too late getting home, I decided to try this shot from the north side of the bridge approach, rather than walking down the stairs, beneath the bridge, and then back up the other side. I sort of like the railing at the top of the wall which shows up at the bottom of the shot. I especially like the golden tree in the center of the shot, as well as the green leaves mixed with the reds. While some of these leaves remain on the trees, in the last 12 days, rain has fallen and winds have blown. All over the city, leaves line the curbs, cover the cars that haven't been driven, and either cover or speckle the sidewalks. Slippery when wet applies.

Here’s a link to the Mayor Sam Adams' leaf pick-up fee fiasco, for which he’s taking the blame.


Later that evening after I got off the bus and walked east on our street, I took this photo. You can see that while leaves cover the parking spaces and most of the sidewalk, lots of leaves are still on the trees. Today they're all blown down, waiting to be removed. Click here to see lots and lots of autumn leaf photos from November, 2008, and to read all about the NW Portland Clean Sweep.

Autumn Lining the Streets

This is our street in the Alphabet District of Northwest Portland. Our building is on the right on the corner. That wall with the windows that you can see is across the side street. to the east of our building.


This is one street to the north of our street. In both photos I'm looking eastward.


A final photo for today's post, taken from the northern sidewalk on our street, looking through an opening caused by a space between an office building and an older house that now is a law office, and looking to the northern side of the street that is just north of ours. The tree on the right amazes me every time I have looked at the photo since I took it on October 23--the vivid color peeks out from the corner of the house wonderfully.

Autumn Stepping Out

Couldn't get focused quick enough 'cause she was steppin' out! I sort of caught the essence of that with the photo--look at the diagonal lines of the back of her coat. She's got that vivid auburn hair that matches so the autumn leaves. She's walking south on NW 23rd, just past its intersection with NW Flanders. Notice the upward slope? This corner is just a couple of blocks from our place, and the grade has already increased this much and more. These changes in elevation make for a good place for me to walk, right near home. I am blessed.

The view from Mama's bedroom window

Isn't she blessed?

Oh, boy! It's color-coordinated, street-level accessory time again!

Please scroll down for today's dahlia, TG 11, from the Canby Dahlia Trial Test Garden, sponsored by The Portland Dahlia Society and The American Dahlia Society, in co-operation with Swan Island Dahlias, maintained in honor of Nick Gitts, Sr. Dahlias on trial--not for sale.

I took this photo after I got off the bus at W. Burnside and NW 23rd. The car is driving south from NW 23rd, crossing Burnside or about to turn left onto Burnside and go east. This intersection has been a favorite of mine since we first moved to this neighborhood in October, 2006. It's easy to see why, isn't it?


Today's dahlia, TG 11.

Autumn Interlude--Sky, Sidewalk, and Vehicle

A tree across the street from Lincoln High School, Saturday afternoon

A tree on NW Flanders at NW 23rd Avenue, Saturday afternoon

The tree to the left of our building's front door, before sunrise.

Nearby sidewalk, #1

Nearby street level matching accessory, #1

Shrub on nearby sidewalk, #2

Nearby street level matching accessory, #2, on NW 23rd at Glisan

Nearby sidewalk, #3

Nearby street level matching accessory, #3, on NW Glisan near NW 23rd Avenue

Nearby sidewalk, #4

Nearby street level matching accessory, #4, the corner of NW Davis and NW 22nd

NW Davis, a view I enjoy every afternoon after I get off the bus, taken Oct. 29 before it started to rain which knocked lots and lots of leaves from the trees

NW Everett, a view I enjoy every morning when I walk to the bus stop--although I took this photo in the afternoon on Oct. 29--it's too dark now to get a good shot in the AM

Part of the price for our autumn beauty--cars blanketed with leaves

The same car, different view

One last view of the autumn bounty.

All of these shots are within a four-square-blocks space, except for the one by Lincoln High School. They provide emphatic evidence of the necessity for Northwest Portland Clean Sweep--for us, the next one is Dec. 5--nearby streets either the week before or the week after. I found this on Portland Online:

PDOT and Neighbors West-Northwest have successfully collaborated for the past 15 years to clean the streets in NW Portland. Residents and businesses are notified in advance to remove their vehicles from the scheduled sweep area by 7:30 a.m. because City sweepers cannot make their way down NW Portland's narrow streets with cars parked.

Can you imagine how many leaves we'd have here if they didn't clean off the streets three times a year?

Tree to the left of our building's front door

I took this photo Wednesday morning about 6:30 a.m., right after I had walked Duncan. The street light provided enough light for a decent photo, I think, especially since the leaves are such a rich gold.

Autumn Blaze

I took this photo Sunday afternoon, in our neighborhood, the Alphabet District.

Y'all, I'm a little off pace with blogging--the World Series has grabbed hold of me. Mama is even missing Wheel of Fortune so that I don't miss an inning. Will wonders never cease? I've become a Tampa Bay Devil Rays fan, but I promise I'm not getting their haircut, the Rayhawk.

They're back ... autumn leaves and Volvo.

I'm walking south on NW 21st on last Thursday, towards West Burnside when I look up for a second, checking to see if the little white man is lit up in the crosswalk sign. I see these trees, and I forget all about the crosswalk. Regular viewers recognize the sign on the roof and the building as Jim Fisher Volvo. I guess regular time isn't all bad.



I can't help myself, y'all,
It's back to the leaves of fall.
I swear they're not just in my head.
I still see rust, gold, orange and red
Every which way on the street that I look,
So get ready for the photos that I took!

(Posting early--going over to my older son's for dinner.)

Serendipity--you gotta love it.

On Oct. 14 these red trees grabbed hold of me and I had to pull the Buick off Barbur Blvd. into a Fred Meyer parking lot, and take this photo. Last night when I took a better look at it, I got plumb tickled. Look at the car. Look at the man's shirt. Look at the trees. I love it.

For fun and foliage-filled walk around our block in Portland's Northwest Hills, go to my other blog, Mama and Me from PDX.

Great Leaf Moments, A Series, III

Y'all know how fond I am of telling which direction I face when I take a picture. Can't do that this time. The minute I drove the Buick west on NW Johnson and turned right onto NW Westover Road, I soon lost track of direction.



I just kept turning onto the high road at each intersection. Looking at the Google map just now proved to be no help, either. The roads resemble curving pasta of different lengths, lying nearby and atop one another on a small dish. Suffice it to say that we went up and up, circled here and there, pulling to a stop wherever possible to take a few pictures. Mostly we went, "Look at that!" I couldn't stop because a vehicle was behind me, so I missed quite a few photo opportunities.

I managed to drive by one house three times, each time from a different direction. I recognized its almost two-stories high concrete retaining wall. Twice I drove by a nice flat concrete driveway where I could have turned around but for the fact that as I approached the driveway, all I could see underneath the concrete at is juncture with the roadway was space, empty space. The whole house, driveway, carport, everything is on stilts or pylons or whatever they call them. No was was I going to tempt fate with my toes, much less an entire automobile!





In spacious, flatter areas, streets widened but houses still sat atop steeply banked lawns, hiding behind well-kept plantings.

Great Leaf Moments, A Series, I

You're looking west. This is the intersection of West Burnside and NW 23rd Avenue, to the right, and SW Vista to the left. To get you oriented to previous posts, I could have turned around after I took last week's photo looking east down Burnside, the one that showed you Jim Fisher Volvo and the trianglular building, and seen this intersection. I didn't take this one right after the other one, though, because the sun wasn't up enough to do the leaves justice.

On Oct. 13, after Mama, Duncan and I got into the car, this is the first photo from our tour of the neighborhood. One week later, the first tree in the row alongside Burnside, the one right above the white van, had lost every single leaf. Like I said, it's been raining and blowing a good bit. Within weeks, leaf-less limbs will branch out from trunk after trunk all over the city, so I'm embarking on a series of sorts to share this beauty with you, in a rush with nature I suppose you could say.

The small brick building on the left houses a State Farm Insurance office. Across from it you can see a sign that reads Zupans--that's a nice high-end grocery store. Up the hill to the left you see a pale building with many windows and the word Envoy top center. Here's a bit from the Web: "The Historic Envoy, built in the 1920's, has been renovated to its original charm and converted to condominiums. Units feature vintage hardwood floors, paned windows and covered off-street parking. Many have city and mountain views." The few I found for sale are in the $330,000 plus range, even the one bedroom. Y'all are beginning to understand why Mama and I happily rent, right?

An hour or so later after driving the twisting and turning roads above our neighborhood to the west, we've stopped on NW 23rd Avenue, waiting to cross West Burnside, so that we can take SW Vista up into another part of the hills. Burnside divides Portland into north and south, hence the direction change for the streets. Some but not all streets also change names, like at this particular intersection. Here's the corner from another angle.



After driving up Vista and making a couple of right hand turns, plus stopping to take a few photos from a stairway hanging on the side of a steep hill--or at least that's how it seemed to me, the one with a pronounced fear of heights--we arrived at the intersection one last time.

You can see from this photo how steep Vista is as it heads south from Burnside. It gets even steeper very quickly. My goal is to be able to walk up it so that I can go to the Vista Bridge and take photos from the 120 foot tall bridge--there's no where nearby to park, so why not? Well, to tell you the truth, it will be scary as all get out, as we say in the South, but I'm going to do it because I want to take photos from it. This photo-blogging is positively changing my life.

Leaf Down, Leaves Up

A week ago Saturday, I walked to get the car so that Mama, Duncan and I could tour at leisure our neighborhood and the steep hill above it. We wanted to find more colorful autumn leaves to enjoy and to share with everyone.

I walked around to unlock the passenger door and couldn't believe this golden leaf balanced so perfectly on the door handle. Then I looked up to enjoy the leaves still on the tree.

View from Mama's windows, moments ago.

In and around Portland, it's been raining, it's been blowing ... off and on for days. That happens this time of year, with welcome sun breaks now and then.

Still and all, beautiful sights await my camera and me. I couldn't believe that at the moment I decided to push up one of the windows in Mama's bedroom and take a few photos of the trees across the street, there walked two women in perfectly colored raincoats--more street-level accessories for our autumn leaves. Oh, I didn't lean out to take the photo this time because I wanted to stay dry!

Our view from the living room windows, these autumn days

Merry Autumn Days

By Charles Dickens

‘Tis pleasant on a fine spring morn
To see the buds expand,.
‘Tis pleasant in the summer time
To see the fruitful land;
‘Tis pleasant on a winter’s night
To sit around the blaze,
But what are joys like these, my boys,
To merry autumn days!

We hail the merry Autumn days,
When leaves are turning red;
Because they’re far more beautiful
Than anyone has said,
We hail the merry harvest time,
The gayest of the year;
The time of rich and bounteous crops,
Rejoicing and good cheer.