Sharon's blog: Burning Bushes, Tornadoes and Other Fall Phenomena

A phenomenon is any incident deserving of inquiry or investigation and is particularly unusual or of distinctive importance; its plural is phenomena. . . or so says Wikipedia.  I say there's some unusual craziness going on in my backyard.

Halloween night brought with it a phenomenon, a tornado ripped the roof off a little strip mall at the end of my street.  To me it sounded like the start up of a huge tractor/trailer truck suddenly changing gears then stopping in the middle of the change and going dead silent.  I didn't know about the tornado till the TV came back on and I could see the news.  And I didn't know about the little events in my back yard until yesterday and today when I could get outside and find them.  Tornadoes usually are spring events and they don't happen often here in Western Kentucky, but I never know when a little event might occur.

Until Halloween, most of the trees remained green and there weren't many color changes around me.  The storm changed everything.

The burning bushes on the property line behind me had begun to turn to red, but it wasn't until yesterday that they began to glow like a beacon in the night.

From the deck	Through the smoke tree	Behind the Witch Hazel

 There were other changes too, the trees across the way seemed brighter, the crepe myrtle glowed and the golden raintree shimmered with light.

Colorful leaves danced around the plantain, the mimosa, now naked, had strewn its clothes throughout the yard, and my one little group of hens and chicks seemed no worse for the wear, though a bit covered in debris.

In the midst of all this sudden fall color, I caught a glimpse of bluish purple and since this isn't the season for blue nor purple, I had to look closer.  You just never know what phenomena lurk after a fall storm.

Violets rarely, if ever, bloom in Fall here in Kentucky; somebody forgot to mention that to these little guys.

Burning bushes always remind me of another phenomenon that rarely occurred, an argument between my Aunt Bett and Granny Ninna.  Aunt Bett swore that the Euonymous alatus was a medicinal plant and Ninna swore that it was sacred and not to be touched, but that's a story for another time, another place; I'm just reminded of it when the bushes begin to burn.

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