Posts Tagged ‘autumn’
Yep, Snow
Well, we got that out of the way. The first snowfall of the season arrived and decorated our place with a light frosting of white yesterday.
Made for a great Sunday afternoon of lounging in front of the fireplace and watching football games on television up in the loft.
There will be plenty of other days to be out in the elements when flakes are flying in the months ahead. I elected to spend the first one indoors.
Am I showing my age?
Yeah, probably.
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Way Fun
It’s a little embarrassing how much I enjoyed the ease of large-sized puzzle pieces which allowed me to polish off this beauty in a day at the lake.
I guess a mental break from my routine was due. My brain soaked up the puzzling like a dry sponge takes on water. Nothing like putting things in order and getting a pretty picture to appreciate as a result. It was a nice antidote for the constant onslaught of changes and challenges life routinely serves up.
The convenience of the large pieces were key to enabling me to get this assembled in a single weekend.
It definitely changed both the visual and tactile features of puzzling that appeal to me, but after finishing as quickly as I did, I rate the tradeoff as an acceptable compromise.
With my project complete by early in the morning yesterday, we had plenty of time to get out for a walk in the middle of the day to take in the beginnings of fall colors around the lake.
The dominance of gray in the sky and gray reflected off the surface of the water, served to mute the true beauty of the few trees showing good fall color.
On our drive home, between periods of sun and one rain shower, we noticed the intensity of color ebbed and flowed inconsistently. Brilliance increased for a while, and suddenly disappeared. Then, as we made our way close to home, the fall colors seemed to pick up again.
One tree on our land caught my attention last Friday, because of the way it stood out as an early adopter.
There are a few more trees that decided to join the fun over the weekend. One maple tree by the hay shed is beginning to show deep red in the top third of its branches.
It’s fair to say, the colorful fun is getting ready to break out all over around our place in the very near future.
Sure hope we get some sun and blue skies to enhance the annual spectacle!
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Woods Changing
Fall has arrived and it sure feels like it outside this morning. There is a distinct chill in the air, despite the ongoing global warmup occurring.
Well before the fall landscape color palette changes from green to red/orange/yellow, an inside view reveals the impending change.
There aren’t a lot of leaves on the ground yet, but there is a definite thinning of foliage going on. Delilah and I were traipsing along the soggy trail yesterday when I took the above picture. Times like this bring great appreciation for the “boardwalk” we envisioned in one of the swampy spots of our trails. It is an ongoing installation of blocks I remove from shipping pallets I salvage from the day-job.
Once again, it is getting easier to leave the trail and bushwhack through our woods to explore rarely visited spaces. I think this may subtly contribute to a universal attraction people share for fall, along with the obvious colorization and comfortable dew point temperatures. The woods open up and provide easy accessibility.
Friday night the easy access seemed to invite a noisy visitor to the grove of trees just beyond our house. Delilah spends many precious minutes every day barking in response to the sound of neighboring dogs miles away. Friday, that neighboring bark came from darkness just beyond the reach of our flood light.
Oddly, Delilah felt no need to respond, although she took great interest in our sudden fascination with the mysterious trespasser outside the back door. My guess was the stray visitor had treed a raccoon, or squirrel, or turkey and was “shouting” at it.
Last evening, during our last big walk of the day, I let Delilah’s nose direct us off-trail through the woods along the many odd paths frequently traveled by a variety of resident critters.
I also put fresh batteries in the trail camera to resume monitoring the night life visiting the chicken coop.
It was a very quiet night there last night. No motion until almost 6:00 this morning, when a cat wandered past.
We took down the netting around the coop yesterday, making it easy again to clean the poop board, so maybe traffic will pick up with time. Not that we wish for that. I just see it as inevitable.
Inevitable like the end of summer growing season, which is marked by the first real overnight freeze. I’m in no particular rush for that, other than a desire to be done mowing the grass for another year.
With the woods changing noticeably, and the noted chill greeting us this morning, we sense the big freeze isn’t far off.
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Labor Day
It is a U.S. holiday today. I am going to take the day off. I still might get out and do a much-needed chore at home, but I don’t need to commute to the day-job today! Woot!
Here is a “Words on Images” first posted nine years ago. Speaks to this time of year…
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Words on Images
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A hint
Walking up toward the house the other day, something new caught my eye. Can you see it?
Probably not. It’s subtle. How about if I zoom in?
It’s the leaves of the tree beyond the house.
Already?
They are showing the first hint of autumn color on our property.
Yikes.
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Rusty Hue
The changing season has taken a very noticeable shift in a short span of days, from brilliant to subdued, in terms of color palette. Last week, the color was electric, but yesterday the landscape looked like someone had unplugged the power and all the trees have begun to rust.
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Those pictures were taken just four days apart. Our forest is quickly becoming transparent, as you can see.
It kinda gives the impression that winter is on the way, which is mind-bending because yesterday the temperature was so summer-like. How it looked, and how it felt were not quite in alignment.
Naturally, I base my perception of what kind of weather to expect, on what I’ve experienced in the past, but the planet hasn’t been itself lately. With all that humans have done to muck up the natural order, we’ve made the art of prediction less predictable.
It has me trying to reclaim the naiveté of my youth, when I didn’t have a clue about weather and seasons. Each day was just something to be explored. I’m sure it was magical. I don’t actually recall. Though, of course, I didn’t need to plan and prepare for what would come next.
This has me longing for the benefits of childhood freedom from needing to be concerned about preparing property for the freeze and clearing snow, having enough fuel, getting vehicles winterized.
Oh, to just wake up one morning and exclaim, “Snow!” with pure joy about going outside to play in it.
That is, if it still gets cold enough for snow in coming days.
It’s getting hard to predict.
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Autumn Sunshine
This week, the weather forecast is ideal for sun and color. We are reaching the point where the tree-scape offers hardly any remaining green foliage. With evening’s arrival rapidly moving to an ever-earlier hour, the late afternoon sunshine is now putting its low spotlight on the peaking red/yellow/orange hues of autumn, illuminating them with a wonderfully amplified brilliance.
The grass isn’t showing much regard for the change of season. It is still growing like it’s early summer. Last time we had opportunity to mow, Cyndie took a crack at it, but wasn’t able to finish because the belt slipped off the pulleys.
After work yesterday, I picked up where she left off, and found the challenge of extra-long grass compounded by standing water in many places. The soaking rain we received on Saturday has yet to soak in.
A week of drying will be a timely blessing. One that comes with a bonus of some prime autumn viewing.
And for the record, the two shots above are different angle views of the same tree.
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Maple Floor
All that fall color in the trees eventually makes its way to the ground. This time of year we get a beautiful new carpet on our forest floor.
A new maple floor. I like how well it hides stains. Unfortunately though, sometimes it gets slippery when it’s wet.
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At Last
After too many days of no improvement, we are finally seeing glimmers of the old Delilah we knew and were often irritated by. Funny, how perspectives change, and behaviors that came across as a nuisance when she was overflowing with canine energy can become a celebration after a long series of days of droopy, pained existence.
Delilah has regained a little spring in her step, and has flashed moments of youthful yearning to playfully bite and romp, quickly curtailed with reasonable restraint.
Just hearing her let loose with a full-body shake that flops her ears in the rapid tremolo pounding against her own head is of significance when the sound has been absent for so long.
It is like a fresh ray of sunshine after a long period of rain, which is also an apt description of the day we have been blessed with today.
Hello, fall colors!
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Muted Brilliance
Most of the glory for fall colors goes to the trees, but I would say that the essential component for spectacular explosions of brilliant color happens to be the sunshine which illuminates the foliage. Our landscape of turning leaves is so incredibly less vibrant when the day is cloudy gray.
However, even muted, the place is starting to look pretty fall-festive.
Imagine what that would look like under bright sunlight shining from a deep blue sky.
Next chance to see the real thing is expected to be Sunday. For those keeping track, that will be the second Sunday of October. It should be a gorgeous day for a hike down a wooded trail or a pause around the campfire.
The second Sundays of each month make for an excellent excuse to take a little drive in the country and stop by Wintervale Ranch to explore and experience our paradise first-hand.
There’s never a bad month to visit this place, but this time of year is quite possibly the best.
Especially on a sunny day.
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Relative Something 