Autumn foliage in Dallas’ Old Lake Highlands neighborhood: 2008

by John P. Meyer

One of the joys of living in an established neighborhood such as Old Lake Highlands (NE of White Rock Lake, in Dallas) is the canopy of mature trees one may amble about beneath on a walk around the block. In summer, they provide much-appreciated shade; this time of year, they take on the aspect of mad pop art.

In my little corner of the habitable universe (bounded roughly by Van Dyke, Northcliff, Peavy and Easton) there are trees so old that they came as original equipment when the developers first decided to build houses here (1950s). There are also a great variety of them, from oaks, live oaks, sycamores, hackberries, maples and pecans to the intricately-recurved, spidery limbed (and - at this time of year - fiery-red leafed) crepe myrtles.

There are also plenty of exotics, which were planted at the whim of the homeowner - it would take an arborist to identify them all. My across-the-street neighbor, Fay, went with a pair of Japanese pistachios, which currently sport flame-orange leaves that appear to be dang nigh fluorescent. A couple of iconoclasts have nurtured bald cypresses into healthy adults; it's disconcerting to see their foliage turn burnished bronze, because - from a distance - they appear to be evergreens struck by some sort of malicious beetle infestation.

Typically, the week around Thanksgiving marks the height of fall color in our North Texas region, and this year has proven to be no exception.

On the Friday following Turkey Day I pocketed my grabshot camera as Anne and I took off for our "working off breakfast" stroll, and I fear that any potential aerobic benefit was lost as I forced a stoppage at every turn to frame and shoot one gorgeously-hued scene after another. The results are seen here.

The overcast conditions proved perfect for catching the saturated colors, and the lack of wind meant that I could snap away and expect to have a decent amount of sharpness in the resulting images. Today (Saturday, Nov. 29) the sun is back full force and the winds will be picking up from the northwest, making for more difficult shooting.

Which tempts me to just stay indoors where I can enjoy a seasonal brewski and a dark, oily-skinned Nicaraguan. (Cigar, I mean.)

photos by JM