I walked downstairs yesterday and was enveloped in a golden glow. It was the witch hazel tree, that stalwart of the garden, earliest to bloom and gracious in its un-leafing.

Perhaps because I’m sauntering through the season with our little doggie, I’m noticing the autumn colors more this year. The oak at the end of the street is at its most fetching, an almost neon orange set off by the green still left on the tree. I have a favorite view of it, which is from the meadow where it’s framed by bare branches.

Elsewhere in the neighborhood there are russets and roses and burning bushes bursting by the roadside. Northern Virginia has never been a fall wonderland — we have our springs, after all — but for a week or two we sport a kind of mellow beauty that speaks of the serenity this season can hold.