Archiving a most colorful autumn.
For what it’s worth, it was like this a lot on my old blog. Weeks would go by without inspiration to make a post. Looking through my photographs over the past six weeks, though, I realize it’s past time for a photo dump.
As of this writing we’re recovering from another autumn snowstorm, this one more typical, as it occurred not in September, but in the week before Halloween. The severe drop in temperature to single-digits Fahrenheit has “burned” the remaining leaves on the trees from bright yellow to dull brown, from vibrant red to flat rust.
That is to be expected, sadly, as the bitter cold normally makes its debut this week. Fortunately, it didn’t get so cold with the 8 September storm. The trees and leaves recovered quite nicely.
The cataracts on my camera lens are something I'll have to work around until I can afford a new one. Meanwhile, it's good to see how much green was still around, even as the leaves began changing in late July due to the drought. Pictured below is the maple tree that traditionally changes first. By this point it has lost most of its leaves, even as the tree behind it is just beginning to change color.
For whatever else has happened in this year of crisis, 2020 has gifted us with a most glorious autumn. The days have been warm, the changes have been permitted to come slowly. No vicious high country windstorms canceled the season, as happened last year.
For my part, I love it when the gold is just beginning to overtake the green. Again, it was so deliciously gradual throughout October.
It was a different world one month ago. Most of these trees are bare now.
Going back into town towards home there is beauty to shame the squalor of busted curbs and indifferently kept alleyways. This is where one might write, "but you have to look for it," but it's impossible to miss. That gold jumps out at you every time.
On our way home we cross the parking lot where the farmer's market came and went without patronage from us this year as my wife and I found the idiotic mask mandates and arrows telling us how we could move offensive. Every event and festival that defines this town and marks the seasons has been canceled this year due to the pandemic panic. Still, amidst all this beauty, we're moving on from impotent rage against this Canceled Year and into genuine gratitude. Our focus is turned away from the worldly frivolities that used to matter to those things that truly do.
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