Nature’s last smiles of the year

“Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn–that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness–that season which has drawn from every poet worthy of being read some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling.” 

~Jane Austen, Persuasion (1818)

My weekend walk was very much like Jane Austen describes it: Nature seemed to smile — even wink — at me through blades of long curly grasses, brightly coloured leaves and lily pads, and gnarly, naked branches reaching to the sky. Nature’s last hurrah before closing up for the winter.