A Magical Moment

I walked across the porch this morning, to go get the newspaper, and when I got to the front steps, this is what I saw! There is a day each year, when a majority of the leaves of the Japanese maple fall. They gently blanket the ground under the tree, and they are brilliant in their color. Today was that morning. I was just stunned with how beautiful it was. You will notice that there several pieces of wood in the middle of the photo. These are dead pieces of a lilac tree that I cut off in the spring. They are interesting because they are twisted, so I left them there, thinking that one day I might make a picture of them. Well, today was the day for the branches, as well as the leaves. It started raining later in the day, and now the leaves are soggy and matted down, and the magic moment is gone. I posted a larger than normal image, so please click on this to see it in greater detail.