Any wonderful unexpected thing

Julia ♦ October 7, 2026 ♦ Leave a comment

I took this photo from my front porch during my first autum in Potomac Shores, 2019.

“After the keen still days of September, the October sun filled the world with mellow warmth…The maple tree in front of the doorstep burned like a gigantic red torch. The oaks along the roadway glowed yellow and bronze. The fields stretched like a carpet of jewels, emerald and topaz and garnet. Everywhere she walked the color shouted and sang around her…In October any wonderful unexpected thing might be possible.”
― Elizabeth George Speare

Finally we are experiencing the first true autumn weather, and if you live in the northern hemisphere, I hope you are too. Something about that cool fall air does seem to be filled with endless possibilities for joy. So many activities of October anticipate delights soon to come, whether choosing Halloween costumes for kids, or wrapping the first gifts for Christmas, or planting bulbs for spring blooms.

I wish you all the usual enjoyment of October, plus a few wonderful and unexpected surprises. Don’t forget to make time for walking, now that the temperatures are so pleasant. As Speare observed, the colors are shouting and singing for us over the next few weeks. All we have to do is watch and listen.

This post was first published seven years ago today. The blog is not designed for viewing on cell phones, but you can get a less distorted version of the photos if you click on the “view on blog” link at the top right of the screen. The original post, comments and photo are linked, along with two other related posts, at the individual post views. These links to related posts, and their thumbnail photos, do not appear in the blog feed; they are only visible when viewing the individual posts by clicking on each one. I have no idea why, nor do I know how they choose the related posts. That’s just the way WordPress does things.