Monksville Reservoir

I have to drive over Monksville Reservoir everyday on my way to work. With the recent spate of freezing temps, the heat vapors have been dancing on the surface; glimmering in the sun. It has been this way all week. (Remember it has been in the 20s on the mountain.) Yesterday I decided to pull over and try to capture the rising mist.
Here's another one.

Sorta cool, huh. I wonder if this phenomenon has a name? Anyone know?

Autumn Leaves

Hoo-ey! The Leaf-peepers were out in full force this weekend. The fall foliage normally peaks around here the second weekend of October, but since we had had no wind or rain, this weekend the trees were still in their glory. The weather was crisp, sunny, dry. Perfect for a fall day in the country.

You know how you take things for granted? Oblivious to the beauty around me, I tried to turn left onto the main drag to go to the grocery store yesterday but all I could finally do was turn right and go with the flow. Car after car was filled with families going north. Intent on driving north to turn around and come south again to do my errands, I too got caught up in the fall color. It was spectacular! Abandoning my errands I drove to some of my favorite haunts. Enjoy the pictures.

One of the joy and sorrows of living on the mountain is the hordes of city folk that come to recreate in the woods. I hope you were one of them. If you haven't been out to see the fall foliage c'mon over. It will be over soon.

Signs of Autumn

I am in denial.

Flat out denial.

Even though the grocery store has started to stock mums (3 for $10.) and there are some spots of orange and red where the sun has kissed the trees and the furnace kicked on last night because it got down into upper 30s (and the windows were wide open) and it is getting darker much, much earlier; I am turning a deaf ear---but not a blind eye. For how can I. Fall for me is when the trees themselves turn into flowers. I am feeling abandoned by summer; not yet ready to move on, but Fall is beckoning.

Are you ready?

Wordless Wednesday

White on Red

I woke up this morning to a world transformed. Three inches of snow covered everything. Every twig on every branch on every tree wore a coat of white. The snow weighed down the trees, grasses and shrubs. It was heavy and wet. The red leaves of the maple were a startling contrast to a world made white. I don’t know if I have ever seen snow on autumn leaves.

This is the earliest it has snowed on the mountain in the 7 years I have lived here. If this is a harbinger of things to come, we are in for it!

Wordless Wednesday

"Leaflets 3, let it be."

Poison ivy turns the most beautiful color in the fall.

September

The light has changed.
Even with the visor down
The sun’s dying embers burn my eyes as I drive into the west.
The creep of darkness has begun
and will not end until the brittle cold of the longest night.

Leaves are changing
Sun kissed touches of gold and red decorate the hillsides
Glowing in the long light,
Splotches of nature’s paint that will soon run together
then turn brown and fall away.

There is a chill in the air
The kitchen floor is cold now in the morning.
When I skip across it in my robe longing for the first sip of morning’s heat
I am still warm from the comforter pulled up in the night
My bare feet are icy.


Change is good, it is inevitable.
It comes on so slowly that we do not notice
until
one day it seems to have happened over night.