Fragile Fall

Fall is fragile. 

Let me explain.

Last weekend we were having record high temperatures.  These warm temperatures just happened to coincide with the moment of absolute fall peak.  Last Sunday, it seemed like every single deciduous tree had burst into jubilant color -- some of them literally overnight -- at exactly the same time.   We have to drive to church down the New York Thruway -- through the Mohawk Valley, and I spent a good deal of the drive kicking myself for not bringing the camera.  What I wanted most was to show you, gentle reader, what it is like to live in this place of color -- not just to experience a weekend vacation, or the sudden bang and departure of southern trees (and not even that this year, I'm sure, with the horrible drought) -- but to see what it is like to actually be there when fall reaches its zenith.

The maples in our front yard

I had never actually experienced this before.  Or maybe this year the variables of temperature and moisture and weather just came together in a different way, to produce the perfect spectacle.  Or maybe I had always looked away at the last, most crucial moment before -- involved in the laundry, for instance, or doing a little too much web surfing.  In any case, last weekend was one of sheer awe -- and I'm not being melodramatic.  The pictures I snapped around the house can't convey what kind of day Sunday was.  The trees glowed against a perfect sky.  As if they had been lit from within.   

Next month, the deer will escape to this hill to evade the hunters... there's a cemetery on the other side.  (This shot was taken with a zoom lens; it's not actually that close to us!)

All the hills were red and gold...

Katydid, coming through the garden.  The tree line at the top of the field includes pignut hickories, oaks, and maples.

I actually forbade anyone to go inside last Sunday.  I got a few huffs from those who considered playing Toon Town preferable to soaking in the colors, but mostly everyone was happy to be outside.  Time moves differently for kids anyway.  It stretches out like a cat stretches -- twice as long as it really is.  For us, maybe -- not so much.  Especially here in upstate New York.  Especially when you are not native to upstate New York, and a bit of a worrywart like I am.  Fall sometimes becomes wrapped up in thinking winter's coming, do you know how to use the snowblower yet?  You'd better ask before your husband starts traveling again, because you know what happened last winter!  Have you fitted everyone for snow boots?  Do they have big enough coats?  It's not going to be warm again till June, you know...

Katydid's birdwatching bench and her binoculars.  The path through the birches leads to the garden and our field.

Warm temperatures this autumn mean the grass is still green, and Chipmunk could be outside without a hat.  He loves being outdoors, as we all do.

But on a day like last Sunday, how could any of those worries cross my mind?

Even the sunsets last weekend seemed to be inspired by the trees -- brighter and more colorful than they had been in a long time.

Taking pictures was my attempt to capture the day, the time -- to halter it and lead it tamely back to my barn, where I could take it out again, experience it again, whenever I pleased.  But those fall crimsons are ephemeral and wild.  Two days after I snapped these pictures a front pushed into our area of the country, bringing with it the great enemy of autumn leaves -- wind.  The kids, of course, did not see the wind as an enemy; they swirled and twirled and leapt in it just like the leaves, dancing in the center of the "leaf tornadoes" the wind created.

By Wednesday, most of the leaves were gone.  Yesterday it poured rain, and last night we had our first taste of winter -- the wind again, the sort that thunders against the house and makes you glad the rotten tree is on the ground, slowly being split for firewood.  Today has been cold and mostly cloudy -- a few sunbreaks here and there -- with a stiff breeze that turns everyone's cheeks rosy.  The maples out front are no longer the orange glories of October but the bare gray skeletons of November.   I am hunkered down inside, suffering from a cold, drinking tea from a cup painted with summer birds -- listening to my crockpot perk and hiss while a beef stew bubbles inside. 

It's not such a bad thing for fall to be so fragile.  Experiencing the beauty of that one particular Sunday, I find myself a little more prepared for November, a little more willing to experience the soggy gray and brown that comes before the comforting blanket of December's snow. 

Comments

[Cheryl]

Your pictures are beautiful. I think I was in FL for peak weekend. I feel like I missed fall this year. I'm glad your family was outside enjoying it.

[Becca]

Gorgeous post, both in pictures and imagery. Thanks so much!!

[MaryM]

What a beautiful area you live in - gorgeous variations in fall colors that we don't see in the Rockies.