Tag Archives: fall

Autumn Around Here

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Driving back from the market yesterday morning I rounded the corner and was taken aback, as they used to say, by the beauty of the view. I saw my house across the field, the hill behind it lit up with autumn color. Early yesterday fog rolled out and clouds tossed around the sunlight and it was a stunner of a day.

I started off my morning a trip to Shelburne Pond to look for birds. I was rewarded with a new one for the year for my county list–five Ruddy Ducks were swimming and diving just out from shore. They are not common around here so it was a treat to watch them for a while. I saw some late Red-Winged Blackbirds and heard a Song Sparrow singing. I came home to hear Meadowlarks calling and chattering in our field. There were half a dozen of them, pausing on their way south.

I am fortunate to have an amazing view right from my house. I can watch the hills, this time of year, as the leaves turn yellow and red and orange as color makes its way down the hills. Soon I will be seeing snow on the summits and we will be thinking of skiing. I will seek out more migrating birds today at some point, get out there and enjoy these colors while they last. Halloween isn’t far off. By the time we carve up pumpkins and get some costumes ready and collect all that candy, these leaves will already be turning to dirt.

Leaves Turning

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IMG_5182Here it is, the color wash on the hillsides, the collective visual shouting of millions of leaves. That shouting will get even louder in the next week or two. Talk around here has come back around to whether or not we have reached peak foliage.

I hear the Northeast Kingdom is peak right now.

The Eye on the Sky said it was peak on the summits. 

I don’t think it’s peak here yet; I give it two weeks yet.

I love the noun “peak” to describe the brightest, most resplendent moment of the turning of the autumn leaves. The thing to do is to be on a peak at peak to take a peek at the brilliance from where the view is broad. Stunning it is on these last days of September, with weather to allow us to see it all.

Personally I am guessing maybe ten days until peak. I haven’t been wrong yet this year.

 

Apples on a Beautiful Day

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Yesterday was a stunner. Clouds skimming the horizon in the golden light of fall. A warm breeze. Warm but not hot, cool but not cold. The day smelled of grass going to seed and leaves in the corners and apples. So we went to pick some of those apples.

Shelburne Orchards is the spot of choice to pick apples around here. It sits above Lake Champlain so picking apples means walking the rows of fruit trees with a stellar view. We, my daughter and a friend of hers and I, arrived early in the afternoon. The place was as busy as yellow jackets in a cider bucket. Kids, college students, families, older couples. Everybody in the county was represented. And they were all smiling and having a good time in the orchard.

We picked Cortland and MacIntosh. The picking was pretty good but finding the ripe ones was a challenge at times given the crowds that had been through. They have lots of trees, however, so we filled a bag and walked back through the orchard to pay. Of course, they don’t just sell apples, but apple and Vermont products of all sorts–cider (pasteurized and unpasteurized), pies, pre-picked apples (those all look pretty much perfect), maple syrup, and so on. We left the register with half a dozen cider donuts and some cold cider settled on top of our bag of fruit.

We were not ready to leave just yet, however. The girls were hoping for caramel apples but that was a no go–they were not on offer. Instead, we got in line at the Betty Bar. There they served up Betty Cones–waffle cones with vanilla ice cream and warm apple betty layered inside. That was surely the treat to start off autumn. We left with full bellies and enough apples to eat straight up, to cook into jam, and maybe even to make a pie.

There will be apples to pick for a while yet. One pie won’t be enough so I will have to head back, maybe in October for some different varieties. At this point I will even dare to wish for another perfect day.

Summer Shifting to Fall

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All of a sudden we don’t hang out on the porch all the time. It has gotten cold. Friday morning we had our first frost since spring started. Today the wind is howling. Fall has arrived. The crescent moon on the equinox makes it official.

Asters are blooming in the field. Goldenrod bows in the wind. Milkweed pods are beginning to brown, their seeds drifting over the meadow. This morning I watched the Green Mountains silhouetted by the golden light of morning; a duck zipped across the sky, heading north. Birds have stopped singing, calling to each other now quietly to stay in flocks as they migrate. Leaves drift to the ground, red highlighting the hillsides.

This time of year I think of all the things I have not done. I need to finish clearing the garage of painting accoutrements. I need to dig up and mulch the garden. I want to pick apples and make jam. I should prune some trees. And other things. Should I cut the field again before it snows? Can I fix the lawn mower so we can mow a few more times? Will we be able to get corn again before harvest season is over?

It is hard not to want to simply get outside on these days the sun rises later and lower in the sky. There are mountains to hike and trails to run. Too many years ago my wife and I started hiking the Long Trail about this time. We got married in the fall. It is the best time of year to be outside. It is cool, beyond the heat of summer but not yet the chill of winter. There are no mosquitoes. The air smells full of all that was summer–fallen leaves and soil and ripe fruit.

This morning I spent some time on the porch, finishing a book, drinking coffee, eating a cider donut I picked up at yesterday’s Shelburne Farms Harvest Festival. The wind whipped the trees and the field grass. I thought about all I might do today but felt lazy at the same time. Yesterday I read that the reason we are here is to lead an amazing life. Maybe I should start with trying to do that. I am assuming an amazing life includes roast corn for dinner, if I can find it.

Foliage For Now

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Not Bad, Eh?

Things are popping around these parts at this point. Yesterday and today were just simply glorious, fabulous, lovely, or whatever other descriptors I don’t typically use to describe, well, anything really. I was out early this morning and, once again, was reminded that I live in a beautiful place. It is always beautiful, and it is easy to take that for granted at times, but on days like today–hoo boy what a stunner.

A big fat rainstorm is predicted to hot tonight. We might get a couple of inches of rain, winds with 50 mile per hour gusts and cold temperatures.  My guess is we will have few leaves left at which to gawk when it has passed.  So it goes, however. We still have some fall left. And then, welcome winter. Once it snow, we will have a whole new wonder upon us.

First Frost

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It was cold last night. The thermometer read 32 degrees when I rose this morning. Frost on the pumpkins and all that. Winter on the way, baby.

Sun Coming Up on a Frosted World

Weather

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Last weekend we had some fine weather.  We took a family walk with some friends in Shelburne, had a picnic, enjoyed the views and the cool breezes.  Good times were had. We had some of this:

Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks

And some of this:

Walking Route

Last night, the clouds starting dropping their burdens. Today we had a whole lot of this:

Rain While Waiting for the School Bus

I walked around outside a bit today and I got wet more than once. I have to say, however, I love this stuff. Fall rain, with foliage turning and the cool air and woodsmoke in the air. I mean, does it get better than that?

Your Standard Fall Day Around Here

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Geese are heading south. That’s what they do this time of year. We heard lots of them today. A flock honks its way overhead as I type this. We some a few large flocks of them as we did our things outdoors on this fine fall day.

Headed South, Passing Over Our House

Our neighbor came over this afternoon to mow the wet stretch of our field. We have had cattails galore, not to mention a crazy amount of purple loosestrife, plowing itself down the middle of the field since we moved in, and likely before that. We hired him to get a handle on it. The loosestrife will come back, but it we keep at it we might eventually keep it in check. Ideally the field dries out enough with the tall boys out of there that we can simply mow it and hay it.

Busting Out the Tracks for the Soggy Parts

After the Destruction

We took a walk out t see the effects of the crashing and slashing. We found a vole, hopping about, confused about what the heck just happened. Then we saw a mouse. We had a good look at both of these typically hiding critters as they tried to find a place to hide from the huge beasts on their turf. We also managed to see a small garter snake and a large frog. The latter was a bullfrog, and it was honkin’. Wildlife coming out of the woodwork, so to speak.

Um, Where Did my Habitat Go?

Yesterday we spent the afternoon at Shelburne Farms’s Harvest Festival. That always proves to be a fun event. We had corn on the cob–fire-roasted–and watched a play and took a hay ride and got some face painting and checked out the animals and ran into friends. We had a fine time and will go back again next year. On the way home we turned the corner to find the sun pouring down through a hole in the clouds.  It was, as you might imagine, stunning. So far, fall is off to an ideal start. No complaints here.

Busy at Shelburne Farms--Cars and Sheep and People

Bam! Fall Light in its Glory

Fall Arrives

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Yesterday we had one more shot of summer. It was hot, in the 80’s. Not so much today. Right now, with darkness settled over the house, rain falls.  It drips off the eave and taps the deck. It collects in the hollows of the field. It pools in the driveway and brushes the walls and trees. It is cool. Fall is here.

A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate to hike for three days on the long trail. It felt like fall up high. Leaves were starting to turn in spots. I had some heat but the nights were chilly. As the sun set on my first night, the last of the light caught a few maple leaves framed in the canopy. They were bright from the setting sun, and brighter still in their lack of chlorophyl.

Fall Framed in August

This rain is not unlike the rain I heard on my last night. As I climbed up and over Mount Mansfield (my first time up there in almost 20 years in Vermont), fog blew in. I did not get much of a view. I waited up there for an hour or so, and caught a few glimpses of the scene below, but mostly I saw white.

The "View" Northwest

That afternoon it rained a little here and there and then rained more heavily at night. I had thought that I might climb back up in the morning if it had cleared, but no go. So I headed down.

It rains again now, more heavily than when I started writing this. The nights are cooler. The days are shorter. Leaves change. Fall nudges summer out.

Rain and Dark

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I didn’t run the past two days but I got up and went this morning. It was raining. Hard. And it was dark. And I was sleepy. Did I want to go? Not really, but I did anyway.

It was pouring. Just dumping, really. And, it being late November, it was dark at 5:30. And the clouds made it darker. I dressed, slowly, and stood on the porch.

I did that for a few minutes, stood there that is. I watched the rain drip off the eave through the beam of my headlamp. I was going to get mighty wet. And then I stepped onto the gravel and off I went.

It was chilly, as you can imagine. Not what I would call cold, but nothing warm about it. I was still sleepy, eyes half shut as I navigated the puddles in the driveway.

I was thinking I might go five or six miles. I only went four. I was chilled, I tell you.  It was a decent run. I was home before I knew it. I had to pay so much attention to my feet that I hardly noticed where I was. Plus, it got foggy. I couldn’t see more than a ten feet in front of me.

I was soaked by the time I got home. Dripping. I was thinking that what I wanted at that moment was to a warm cup of coffee and a warm fire. But that wasn’t happening. I could make some coffee and start a fire, but by then it wouldn’t have the same effect. So I took a warm shower and got ready to head to work.

Tomorrow maybe eleven miles?  It should be cloudy but not raining like this morning. We’ll see. This is a somewhat easy week anyway. But I would like to go fairly long. I’ll see what happens when I wake up. I can decide then.