Fall Flashback

We had our first real snowfall today, and it was nice to have a weekend snow day for baking and tree decorating:

Now that the landscape suddenly has been wiped clean of its color, these photos from a month ago look all the more brilliant by contrast: 

Back when we were raking leaves, the kids reported finding a wasp nest in the trees. We had one in each maple tree, and each was a perfectly formed little habitat: 

They’re both about the size of a grapefruit, and they’re still hanging from their branches, accumulating snow. They’re empty now, of course, but the craftsmanship is solid – they’ve held up in our perennially windy weather and don’t seem to mind bearing the weight of several inches of snow. 

They’re rather beautiful in their own way, and with the leaves long gone they look like paper lanterns hanging from the tree. Paper wasps are good predators for bugs that like rosebushes, and they’ve never been even remotely aggressive, unlike the great scourge of yellow jackets this summer. Those nests were so high above our heads that we never noticed them until the wasps had long since died out, so the only thing that remains to do is enjoy them.