Soggy, Finally

Last Wednesday at the cabin was one of those fall days you want to grab ahold of and hang onto as long as possible: a fresh wind, yellow aspens decorating the cabin, chipmunks underfoot, a perfect blue sky, wild turkeys murmuring while they did their daily neighborhood perambulation.

By Sunday, everything had changed. The turkeys were still doing their circuit, but now through mist, drizzle, fog and intermittent rain. As I did my usual walk around Meeker Park, the landscape was bathed in dripping gray, the ground soft and yielding instead of crispy and brittle, as it had been most of the summer. I could almost hear the tree roots sucking up the water. On top of Mount Meeker, when the clouds parted for a few minutes, I spotted snow, the first of the season.

In the morning, there had been a brief period of sunlight, while the clouds were kept at bay, but then the fog started moving in from the east, engulfing whole hillsides.

In the eerie silence of the fog, I heard and saw chickadees, juncos, jays and blackbirds. Earlier, two red-tailed hawks had spun around each other in the air. In this monotone landscape, the few aspen leaves still on the trees glittered like dazzling earrings.

I had planned a long hike, eager to stretch my legs, but the dampness and the cold temperatures made me turn around. On my way back, I walked along the creek and through grasses that looked bleached, so pale that they shone with their own light.

On this Sunday, up and down the road, summer residents were closing up cabins for the winter. The earth had shifted; I could feel it, even before the clouds moved in. It wasn’t just from summer to winter (fall only lasts a few weeks in the mountains) but from something open and soft to something closed and harsh, a world a bit more unyielding.

Comments

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Ahh, those soft-colored grasses are such a joy to see. Wonderful photos.

[Rachel Maizes]

So beautiful, and the way you've captured the mist in the photographs, wonderful!

[Jennifer Woodhull]

Thanks for this gorgeous glimpse of fall in Colorado …

[Brent]

The images might be monotone, but are beautiful in my eyes. Winter is coming. A favorite writer of mine, Jerry Apps, on the cycle of the seasons.
https://youtu.be/iU0Xyu-8DjI

[Julene Bair]

I so enjoy the way you detail this change of seasons. I feel as though I'm there, breathing in the dampness with a sigh relief even as the cold begins to sink in.

[Kathy Kaiser]

Brent, thanks for introducing me to Jerry Apps. I just listened to some of this talks.