Communities of Leaves

One of the routes I ride to coffee takes me across campus. But before I move on I want to give you some idea about the campus. The CSU campus (urban forest as they call it) has approximately 9,000 trees distributed over three campuses, comprising 1,886 acres of land. The majority of CSU’s managed urban forest (7,207 trees) is located on the Main Campus within 191 acres of irrigated landscape. This 191 acres, where I ride to the coffee shop, provides a beautiful canvas for those 7,207 trees on campus to put on their fall season show of colors. I consider it a gift to watch these leaves of colors flutter and drift to the ground, swirling and dancing with the wind and forming small communities (piles) of leaves.  A community here and one over there. Though these leaves are no longer connected to their branches they are still connected by these small communities (piles) of leaves, happily dancing and singing with the wind. I sometimes wonder where they will be tomorrow or even later today? But this fall show is shortened and the end of the next stage of life for these leaves is altered as the groundskeepers quickly move in to remove the leaves, and I understand the reasoning. We also do it with our parks and lawns. But being the sentimental person I am, I personally like to see the leaves being blown all over the campus into small communities of leaves, living out the rest of their lives in decomposition, rather than seeing the ugly bare asphalt, concrete or the manicured green grass. It’s almost like the leaves have become refugees and are being sent to the landfill. I’ve ranted about this before and probably will again. We had a wonderful fall day here in Colorado and hope you did as well.