Falling In love With Fall

Ah, Fall. Such a beautiful time of year! Crisp mornings, colourful autumn leaves, cosy knitwear and Pumpkin Spice Lattes - what's not to love?

I was curious about what causes the Fall colour change, so I thought I'd share my internet-based findings with you. As the temperature begins to drop and the days become shorter, chlorophyll production in plants gradually ceases. This means that the green colour usually present in leaves fades away, revealing underlying pigments such as yellow, orange and brown. The red colour that occurs in some trees is caused by a breakdown of sugars.

Fall colours in Ontario are usually at their peak during the first week of October and the best displays occur with a combination of cool nights and sunny days. The Ontario Parks website provides a fantastic colour report of the best times and places for 'Leaf Peeping' (yes, that's a thing).

Well, that's enough education for one day. Here are some pretty pictures!

Nuit Blanche

We stayed up pretty late on Saturday night to explore Nuit Blanche, where the city of Toronto magically transforms into a surreal, all-night, outdoor art exhibition. Several major streets were shut down for the event, making room for scores of people to wander between artworks. Balloons, patchwork quilts, bicycles, plastic bags, socks and chairs were just some of the materials used in the sculptural pieces, which repeatedly brought to mind questions such as "what does it mean?" and "is it art?" We finished the night in the traditional Canadian way by devouring a box of take-away poutine at 2:30am.