Sharing the wild
What if red was blue? Or green was yellow? How do such changes affect our sense of the world?
Playing with colour — as I’ve done with these sow thistle flowers gone to seed — shows me the familiar in unforeseen ways. I start to pay more attention. And I soon realize I don’t know as much as I thought I did. 🙂
Sow thistle Sonchus arvensis
This creek ripples over rounded rock
Slips softly through reflections
Of tall spruce
Spilling green into
The disappearing days of autumn
More so than summer or winter, fall is a time of rapid change in the northern latitudes, especially in the long shadow of the Rockies.
Light disappears at both ends of the day. Colours abound. Rain drops freeze overnight and moths no longer come to the window.
Photographs of vivid sweeping landscapes are popular this time of year. As for me, I’m drawn to out-of-the-way spots where Autumn reveals herself in different ways.
My friend and I had postponed our hike several times over the past months — too hot (unseasonably so for Alberta), too smokey (from the fires that burned all summer in BC) and most recently because of grizzlies that have been killing livestock.
So before winter closed in we opted to hike Snake Hill. Not nearly as challenging or picturesque as our original plans but definitely safer until the bears den up.
It was a cold, windy, overcast day. As we rounded a bend in the trail we were startled to see someone else on the path. Or so we thought.
A hiker with a dose of humour had travelled this way after the recent snowfall. It’s not quite a real snowman. More of an in-between-the-seasons kind of guy.
Thanks to the person who filled our morning with laughter.
Snow guy Nix humanus
Autumn puts brush to palette
Blends rich colours on the board
Then lightly, deftly
Paints the forest floor.
When autumn arrives in Alberta it doesn’t come with the glamour and flare of eastern Canada where colour spreads like wild fire across the landscape. Yes, aspens turn gold here and bring their share of ooo’s and ahhh’s with blue skies and dark spruce as a backdrop. And cities — with ever-increasing exotic plants and trees — have their share of colour.
I prefer the quiet corners and little seen spots where autumn colour, when I find it, brings a feeling of delight and joy, a special corner of the world.
Right now in our woods bunchberry is painting the understory with reds and purples. There’s dried grass. And fading leaves of lungworts, roses, fleabanes and strawberries.
It’s all a beautiful toss-up of colours and textures, a see-you-next-season greeting card just waiting to be discovered.
It’s easy to lose yourself in the crowd
To do/say/think just like those around you.
Trying to belong
Is a foolish footpath.
How can you be happy
If you’re singing someone else’s song?
Learn to be yourself
— whatever that may be —
then you won’t need to look for happiness.
It will find you.
Bunchberry Cornus canadensis
Autumn and Winter argue daily here
Rain/sleet/snow
Now blue sky and sun
Warm afternoons and freezing nights
Rites of passage as seasons collide.
Late August and amidst all the rain-lush greenery a brilliant hit of orange and gold.
A small saskatoon berry bush, barely one season old. Far too soon for fall colours — at least among the more experienced plants.
What triggered its leap into autumn? Perhaps it just wanted to see what all the fuss was about.
Saskatoon berry Amelanchier alnifolia
August 30, 2016
Jack Frost and I were both out early this morning. I found his mark on low-growing shrubs and grasses, on withered clover and damp stones.
After too many days of heavy rain this week’s forecast promises sun and warmth. Ah, but nighttime, that’s a different story. Old Man Frost is lurking around the edges, biding his time. Winter’s harbinger.
September 13, 2016
The Lens and I 
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