Seasons are Starting to Change

It is one of those things you notice in the air. The little chill that gives you a clue something is a little different. A change in the air. Or you happen to notice a tree that is looking a little different. Oh my word is that .... well it is just a hint of fall color.



I know that this is not one of those stunning Colorado golden aspen shots. Nor one of those shots that New England is so noted for with its maples and other hard woods erupting in yellows and golds and the reds some moving in to the purple range. Nor is it the best autumn photograph I even have taken. But it was more that just a hint, it was proof. It was more than getting fall, it had arrived. I did not need the newspaper or internet to warn me that fall was almost here.

I myself had seen the evidence that Mother Nature had come calling with her palette of autumn colors. Oh this just a hint, a teaser of what is to come. She will continue to visit and paint though no one - at least no human ever will notice her. Oh I have heard that the deer and elk know her. The beaver and the chipmunks talk to her. The sly fox and coyote will even carry her paint on occasion. Indeed she has tricked them and used their tails from time to time as paint brushes. Thus the dark spot on a coyotes tail and the white nib on the foxes.

Mother nature and fall are so strange. It is such a brief time. A time where she Mother Nature puts on the most unbelievable art show we ever see. On the calendar autumn is three months. Oh how I challenge that, at least in the north country. Fall or autumn is that time when the colors change to the reds and golds. Then the leaves fall as does the snow. The snow that white washes and cleans the canvas.

Yet my calendar says Autumn shall continue until the shortest day of the year in the north country. This is wrong. Where is autumn when there is snow and no color. Where is the magic of the color. Gone and buried under the robe of white. Yet the calendar says we are still in autumn. I say it is winter that season of intermission of color. Winter! In the winter her palette is changed to north country to whites and bold contrasting blacks. To me and my world fall or autumn lasts about a month and a half. It stops being autumn when the frosts and the snows go to war and cover the golds and reds.